Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European Commissioner for Environment and Fisheries, asked France on Friday 4 February to investigate the circumstances that led to the dumping of dead fish into the sea by fishing vessels in the Bay of Biscay.
The NGO Sea Shepherd published photos of thousands of dead fish 300 kilometres off the coast of La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay the day before. The NGO reports that these discharges are the result of manoeuvres by four factory vessels, including the world’s second largest trawler, the Margiris (which is 143 metres long). “More than 100,000 dead blue whiting have been thrown back into the sea by one of these ships alone”, the NGO writes.
The French Minister for the Sea, Annick Girardin, said that she had asked the National Fisheries Monitoring Centre to investigate the matter in order to identify the causes of these large discards of fish. “France defends sustainable fishing and this does not reflect that. If an infringement is proven, sanctions will be taken against the identified shipowner responsible”, she added.
Mr Sinkevičius also calls on the alleged flag State of the offending vessel to investigate. The EU has been phasing out discards of fish at sea since 2015. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)