To curb the slaughter of dolphins, the government restricts fishing in the Bay of Biscay

2023-10-26 13:00:24
A demonstration at Les Invalides, in Paris, on February 22, 2023, to denounce the massacre among dolphin populations caused by fishing nets in the Bay of Biscay, in Paris. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP

In the name of saving dolphins, fishing will experience periods of restriction in the Bay of Biscay this winter. The initiative is unprecedented. It appears in the decree signed by the Secretary of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, published Tuesday October 24 in the Official Journal and made public Thursday 26. The government thus responds to the Council of State which, on March 20, had given six months to act to curb the slaughter of cetaceans on the western coast of France. In reality, it is being pressed from all sides: by the European Commission, scientists, environmental associations and public opinion: 17,000 people mobilized to express their opposition to this draft decree during the public consultation organized this fall . Only four opinions are “explicitly favorable”.

The vision of carcasses arriving on the coasts by the hundreds since 2016, frequently bearing traces of nets and other fishing gear, does not leave one indifferent. From December 1, 2022 to April 3, 2023, the peak even reached a record of 1,380 dead animals stranded on the coast, according to the count from the Pelagis observatory (University of La Rochelle-CNRS). Experts estimate that it is actually thousands of common dolphins, porpoises and bottlenose dolphins – officially protected species – that are victims of accidental capture and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in winter.

The text of the decree indicates that the season “at high risk” is between January 15 and March 31, but does not establish bans of such duration: these are set at thirty days, from January 22 to February 20, for the next three years.

Compensation

“It is the only economic activity in France which will have a month of work stoppage for environmental reasons”, those around the Secretary of State for the Sea point out. A financial package is planned to compensate French fishing companies. For their part, Spanish and Portuguese vessels – many of which operate in the Bay of Biscay and are also in the sights of the European Commission for their impacts on cetaceans – have also accepted a month of closure, according to the ministry.

As in each episode of the long soap opera around the defense of dolphins, the priority put forward by the government for this new plan is “to produce a maximum of scientific knowledge”. Certainly, cetacean mortality on the west coast is already a subject “very documented” since the 1970s. But learning more about what is happening offshore could perhaps support the hypothesis according to which a growth of this population in the Gulf explains the increase in strandings or that other maritime sectors are involved in accidental encounters, we want to believe in the sea secretariat.

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