Record 1,100 dolphins wash ashore in France this year; activists blame aggressive fishing

A dead dolphin lies on a beach of the Atlantic Ocean near Lacanau, southwestern France, Mar 22, 2019. (Photo: AFP/NICOLAS TUCAT)

The Associated Press news agency on Friday (Mar 29) said that animal welfare groups have blamed aggressive industrial fishing for the deaths, but the cause of the spike in numbers remained a mystery.

“There’s never been a number this high,” Mr Willy Daubin of the Pelagis Observatory was quoted as saying.

“Already in three months, we have beaten last year’s record, which was up from 2017 and even that was the highest in 40 years."

Mr Daubin said 90 per cent of the deaths were caused by accidental capture using industrial nets.

"We have dolphins arriving on the coast with marks, we can prove that it's accidental capture but we cannot detect what fishing gear has contributed to this," he said.

According to AP, the mammals' fins were cut off and their bodies mutilated, while activists said that fishermen commonly cut the body parts of dolphins caught by their net, to save the net itself.

Ecology Minister Francois de Rugy has said he is trying to prevent the dolphins' deaths. His plan includes boosting the use of existing acoustic repellent devices on about 26 trawlers that shoo the dolphins away from the Bay of Biscay, a fishing hub in the Atlantic.

But animal rights group Sea Shepherd claims that many trawlers do not activate the devices unless they are being inspected, for fear that the devices would also chase valuable fish away.

The group also said it believes that noise pollution caused by the devices would make the ocean uninhabitable.

Scientists have predicted the likelihood of dolphins becoming extinct based on current rates of fishing, driven by unprecedented demand for low-cost fish, said Sea Shepherd France president Lamya Essemlali.

Aggressive hake fishing, which was allowed three years ago after a long ban, coincided with the spike in dolphin deaths in the last three years, she added.

Global seafood consumption has more than doubled in the past 50 years, according to the European Commission, a rate that rights groups have branded unsustainable.