Cod and Chips
We send out fishermen in all weathers to the North Sea – a brutal piece of water that is freezing and ravaged by storms - and we demand they come back with nets heaving with our favourite fish.
Cod.
To supply our favourite dish. Cod and chips.
It’s time for a rethink. We’re gorging on creatures that can’t breed fast enough to keep up with governmental ineptitude.
Fish stocks around the British Isles are approaching extinction. European Union (EU) legislation is crazy.
Currently, a trawler may not return to port if the skipper has not adhered to quota levels. Whilst out in a gale, he and his crewmates haul in nets full of fish, already dead, and are bound by law to throw these lifeless creatures back into the water if the trawler exceeds quotas.
Idiotically, trawlers targeting fish other than cod are legally forced to throw back the nation’s favourite seafood because of quotas designed to protect stocks.
According to EU figures, fishermen throw between 40% and 60% of their catch overboard. They can’t be seen to have too much cod on board because that suggests a skipper, hands numb from North Atlantic cold, is being greedy and depleting stocks.
Stocks now rotting because he had to throw them off the deck. A loss of profit for him, an unnecessary loss of life for the fish, a loss of logic.
Fish – already dead – are thrown back into the sea to float to the bottom – eyes staring, unblinking and behind those eyes, perhaps confusion as to why their life ended so meaninglessly
Fishing is part of our heritage. We’re surrounded by water here in the British Isles. How, as omnivores, can we not feed sensibly on flesh so nearby?
“As English as fish and chips.” A phrase that has slipped into local language. It’s a phrase and indeed a meal that now sticks in my throat.
Let those behind desks, those above decks, now reach a compromise before sustainability of EU seafood becomes irretrievable.
Further Sources:
Seems like its time for the government to get out of the way and let the free market take care of the cod. That way as the supply dwindles the price will naturally go up and less people will eat the cod and they will be able to reproduce.