New video footage of dolphins, whales and sharks being caught and killed in mile-long fishing nets off Southern California could create pressure to end the controversial practice of drift-net fishing statewide, according to a coalition of marine wildlife conservation groups that is publicly releasing the material.
The footage, obtained by Mercy for Animals and other groups, graphically depicts marine mammals entangled in the long nets and shows fishing boat crews using knives to kill inadvertently caught animals.
“It’s very disturbing,” said Lindsay Wolf, a spokeswoman for Mercy for Animals, a group based in Los Angeles. “It exposes a shocking level of marine animal abuse.”
The video, which may be viewed on http://www.bandeathnets.com, is the latest weapon in the conservationists’ decades-long battle against the use of drift nets, which are known to catch such marine mammals as dolphins and whales in addition to the swordfish that the nets are intended to catch. A typical drift net is a mile long and hangs 100 feet deep and often yields what is called a “bycatch” of unwanted fish and marine mammals that cannot escape the net, the conservation groups maintain.
The size of the California drift-net fishing fleet is about 20 vessels, down about 80 percent from two decades ago, according to Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which regulates the drift-net fishery.
More info and video: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/art ... 813390.php
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