FH214 Lady Hamilton of Helford, skipper Chris Bean, fish extraction 115mm gill nets: Pisces-rfr 

+Jo Flores - thanks for you comments, and for raising the issue. If you are concerned about this fishery then you should contact Cornish IFCA, www.cornwall-ifca.gov.uk/ who have the legal requirement to manage all the fisheries in this area for sustainability, and pass them the link to this video. But you might first want to reflect on the following points: The inshore fleet, which mainly consists of netters and potters, is relatively constant in size, at least since I started going out in 2004. The number of boats and fishing power of *netters* if anything has declined as crews get older and retire. The radio chat that I hear indicates that crabbers and netters rub along together ok and and collaborate in setting gear so they don't trip over each other - they all live in the same close community, socialise etc. Rather the issues that netters and crabbers share are 1) wandering mobile gear operators towing away both set nets and pots 2) offshore crabbers effectively storing pots in inshore waters over-winter, excluding the inshore fleet from the grounds and perhaps 3) a maxed out market for crab. As for the impact of the nets on the crabs, I don't think that is clear cut - crabs for which there is no market are killed, as you point out. But the crabs are also benefitting from eating fish that they would otherwise not have access to in the nets, and not all of those are caught. And more broadly, general overfishing of fin fish is supposed to have benefitted crabs through lower predation. Cornish IFCA (like the others) gather data on crab landings, and the monitoring of landings and effort are supposed to act as an early warning of stock depletion, and there have been no panics - though I think that more data should be published on this, and if more crews - like these - are prepared to put video onboard - then discard rates can be incorporated directly. I've been working on the video technology to record all fishing in a project called Fishface. Last, while I'm not sure that there is any perfect fishery - on the positive side for these 115mm gill nets, the discard rate of fish (rather than crabs) is extremely low compared to the main method used in the area for fin fish; they have relatively low habitat impact; use very little fuel; and return a higher average price per unit weight. They are generally too far off-shore and too far away from bird colonies for bird captures to be a significant issue. If there was ever an issue, temporary closures should likley do the job. And they have participated in a significant amount of research putting cetacean pingers on the nets -several projects, many months - but no cetaceans were caught in nets either with or without the pingers. As a result of these overall environmental, social, and economic benefits their quota was recently increased. [along with government scientists I was involved in an evaluation to compare these aspects across the different methods]. So while it would be great to have methods with no downsides, at all and we should keep on trying to improve, on balance I think this is a sustainable fishery.

+Malcolm MacGarvin Thanks for giving me that site I just sent them a link to your video, and told them why I think they owe us better than this. I don't really care what excuse you have to share with me, I still think this is shit. For you to think I'm worried about what the crabbers think is just not right. I know I sound like a troll and I'm sorry about that, I'm not just trying to be negative, I just don't think killing something for no reason is good for this planet.

+Jo Flores I didn't think you were a troll, rather someone who was very concerned about the impact of fisheries. But I was a bit puzzled, and wanted to have time to watch the video again and check how many crabs they were catching and the general level of discarding. Having done that I don't understand t your comments - there was only one spider crab caught, and only one fish discard, of a spurdog - which the boats are not allowed to retain. This is typical of this type of gill netting with relatively large mesh nets and short soak times. As a result of some comparative research I was involved in, this and similar boats were allocated more quota because of the targeted nature of this method, and the high price per kg they get, and jobs created, compared to other ways of catching the same species (because of size and freshness). Were you commenting more generally (I show several different types of net in these videos, and they have different catch compositions) - in which case the same comments as before - crab stocks can be under fishing pressure, but it is some of the fin fish stocks that were believed to actually be in danger of collapse, so it seems a bit unusual to emphasise the crab catches and not the absence of fin fish discards which is likely seen as the more immediate challenge.

Malcolm MacGarvin I don't really know why you are puzzled you only killed a few crabs? Really? Hey I didn't kill all of them only a few. Wow, you really something. But hey I'm only killing a little part of the ocean those big boats hey they are the real bad guys not me! I only kill a few every day, not a lot so what's the problem? Wow. I just can't explain if you don't get it, you will never get it. No you will get it when you go fishing and there is no more to catch! You will get it then.

Malcolm MacGarvin Really? I'm wrong that taking something out of the ocean killing it and throwing it back is wrong? Really? Hahahaha holy shit your stupid. No Malcolm look when ever you take something out of the ocean what ever that is and kill it and then just throw it away then YOU ARE WRONG! PERIOD. Who the hell do you think you are that you have that right to just kill a living creature for no reason and think your not doing anything wrong?

oddiedog100 you damage the sidewalk when you goto work ✌🏾

They can probably keep them now were out of the EU restrictions