Cherbourg Alarms
N°1
The Russian tuna seiner Marginella has been immobilized at Cherbourg since July 2007. After leaving Kaliningrad (Russia), she was heading towards South Africa via Ghana to fish bluefin and tropical tuna, under dubious conditions in regard with the conformity to the regulations of ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas). She suffered outbreaks of fire in the machinery space in the North Sea and the English Channel, resulting in a total propulsion failure. She had to be towed to port by Abeille Liberté.
“On the Trail” n°2
Take a trip of beauty and cruelty in the following 80 pages (pdf. 4Mo), swing through the trees with the supreme pleated gibbon, still at liberty in the wild despite being endangered, get to the bottom of cyanide and of poisoned pineapples, survive the etorphine laced arrows, scheme with furniture dealers looking for ivory, discover the cunning tiger trappers, hunt down blackbucks with Bollywood stars, cruise towards China with 2,000 saiga antelope horns worth 22 million dollars, look into the eyes of a baby chimpanzee in a pathetic plastic bag at a Cameroon market, entrench yourselves in the fate of thousands of birds and animals unwilling migrants forcefully removed from their habitats, float down a river with a mutilated elephant carcass and find out about France’s stance on the future of illegal ivory stockpiles, eat Ganges river dolphin meat, pay homage to rangers and forest guards murdered in the wild by poachers …
Seahorses, queen conches and sharks, pages 4 and 5
Robin des Bois will Pursue them via “On the Trail”
Today, Robin des Bois, the Paris based NGO, released the 1st edition of “On the Trail”, a quarterly information and analysis bulletin on poaching and smuggling of endangered animals.
206 events of poaching, seizures, arrests and convictions which occurred in Africa, Australia, America, Europe and Asia are listed. This panoramic vision of cruelty and criminal acts on wildlife, between April 1 and June 30, 2013 makes one shiver and deliberate.
In three months the equivalent of 707 elephants, in tusks, were seized. Poaching of Mali elephants is increasing. Robin des Bois recently wrote to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting that UN peacekeeping troops be given strict instructions to protect the subsisting elephant population.
The sharks fight back
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
CITES 2013 – Bangkok, 17:00 (local time)
Press Release No. 5
Of the 35,000 plant and animal species listed in the CITES* Appendices, only 15 fish will appear in Appendix I and 81 in Appendix II. Fisheries are strategic and political. They must feed humanity while also considering the oceanic territorial claims. Unfortunately, the bluefin tuna has disappeared from all monitors in Bangkok. By contrast, sharks are fighting back with force, accompanied by manta rays.
A Taser for Soles
In 1868, a British patent was issued for an electric harpoon for whaling.
In 1931, the magazine Popular Science presented a technique, tried by the Australian State Fishery Station, of sending electric currents into the ocean shocking all nearby fish, bringing them to the surface where they are picked up by nets.
In 1985 Ifremer (1) recommended carrying out research and exchanging information on electric-fishing techniques.
In 1998, afraid of the impacts of “unconventional fishing methods” and catch efficiency on stocks the European Union prohibited “using methods incorporating the use of explosives, poisonous or stupefying substances or electric current(s)”. However, since 2004 clandestine fishing has been observed in Scotland and 15 years ago the use of electricity was authorised for tuna and basking sharks in certain zones of the Baltic.
The PCB Cookbook
Wearing their top chef’s hats, Ifremer, the General Department for Food, the Management of Maritime Fishing, and waterlife have made for you, just in time for New Year’s celebrations, a dish of the highest quality. It is recommended that you consume crabs fished from the depths of the Seine’s bay, and no longer adhere to the opinion of the National Agency for the Sanitation of Food, Work, and the Environment (ANSES) from May 13, 2011, and to forget the prefect of Haut-Normandie’s decree from July 29, 2011. According to the former, the crabs were considered not to conform to the regulated standards of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) and dioxin content, and the latter forbid both consumption and marketing.
