According to Ciem, the international scientific body of reference, around 9,000 common dolphins die each year by accidental capture on the French Atlantic coast, almost double the sustainable level.
A decision from the Council of State therefore ordered the government to close certain areas for one month to vessels of eight meters or more, equipped with certain nets, to “limit accidental deaths of dolphins and porpoises”.
A measure not seen since 1945.
This period has just ended and the fishermen were impatient to get back to sea. Except that the weather played a bad trick on them, forcing them to stay at the dock again.
“The weather is not good.
We are going to stay on land, we are not going to be able to work,” Alexandre Le Corre, a fisherman in Lesconil (Finistère), explained to AFP.
Same story in Capbreton (Landes) for Aurélien Sorin.
Questioning of the measure
Fishermen are already questioning these bans.
From January 16 to February 15, there were more strandings of small cetaceans this year than last year with 164 dolphins compared to 130, according to the latest monitoring bulletin from the Secretariat of the Sea. However, according to the Secretariat of the Sea Well, these figures should be taken with caution.
Olivier Van Canneyt, biologist at the Pelagis observatory, who coordinates the national stranding network, calls for “waiting until we have the calculations of total mortality over the winter” and emphasizes that the years are not comparable.
Last year, “The conditions for a stranding to occur were almost zero, so there were quite few, whereas there, we had very favorable conditions for corpses to drift but we did not have big peaks in strandings,” he specifies.
Before specifying: “Almost no animal autopsied between Loire and Gironde died by accidental capture.
This is a real result.
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During this closure, Olivier Mercier was content to maintain his two vessels over 14 m repatriated to Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
“We were not allowed to do more, to do major work or to make our employees work,” he stressed.
450 ships compensated
To compensate for the losses of the 450 ships affected by this ban measure from Finistère to the Basque Country, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, promised compensation of “80 to 85%” of turnover according to the types of fishing, with first payments in March.
But the national fisheries committee deplored, on Tuesday, “the slowness of the public authorities in validating the compensation arrangements”.
The government also promised aid for the fish trading sector, going “up to 75% of their losses”.
In addition, the collective of “Angry Fishermen” will make a request for additional compensation in addition to that already promised by the ministry, “since there were strandings while we were not at sea”.
Towards other solutions?
In principle, this closure must be renewed for the next two winters.
But the president of the interdepartmental fisheries committee of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Landes, Serge Larzabal, wants to “demonstrate that this is not the right answer”.
“We will do everything to be able to continue working next year”, thanks to the deterrent devices installed on the boats, to “minimize accidental catches as much as possible”, he assures.
Clara Ulrich, coordinator of fisheries expertise at Ifremer, emphasizes “that the current ban is an emergency measure” in an interview published on the institute's website last week.
“Alternatives to such annual closures are being studied”, “which would combine technological solutions, other methods of spatio-temporal closures or reductions in fishing effort”, she adds, also mentioning “ incentive measures tested in other regions of the world.