Fisheries Policy

The wet fish slab here in Portugal looks very different to that in the UK. Firstly, red meat is much pricier than at home and there are fewer cuts available. Poultry is similarly priced (chickens come with their heads on!) and there is much more duck and also offal. A tray of duck’s hearts seems popular. Fish seems to constitute the bulk of animal proteins consumed, and the Portuguese are far more catholic in their tastes.

UK consumers are loathe to move away from five main species – cod, haddock, plaice, salmon and prawns. There are many more delicious and sustainable fish which we can land but are not consumed. Instead, these ‘low value’ fish are either ground up for animal feed, discarded dead or sold to the continent. Many of the cod family are equally tasty, and I saw “poor cod” – a beige mini-cod – on the slab here.

Black scabbardfish - a vulnerable deep sea speices

Of more concern were the less sustainable species I also saw on sale. Around 15 years ago, man started exploiting deep sea species, such as orange roughy and black scabbardfish. The MCS firmly puts all these species in their “fish to avoid” category:

“Deepsea fish are highly vulnerable to over-exploitation and have a low resilience to fishing. There is currently very little data on the deepsea ecosystem and fish stocks, thus it is almost impossible to manage and enforce deepsea fisheries sustainably. Due to the international nature of many of the deep sea fisheries on the high seas, compliance with any regulations can be low, and due to the difficulties in enforcement on the high seas, there can be large problems with Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported catches. Deepsea fishing gear is often comprised of heavy bottom towed gear which is extremely detrimental to the ecosystem and can decimate productive deepsea areas such as seamounts and oceanic ridges. Static gear has less of an impact on the seabed but is still detrimental to fish stocks. It can be easily lost and will then continue to ghost fish for a long period of time, causing further detriment to deep sea stocks. Deep sea fish in general have very low productivity, a high age at maturity and tend to live a long time. Many populations have decreased significantly. There is a tendency for deepsea fish to form discrete aggregations which are susceptible to sequential depletion. Avoid deepsea fish species.”

Campaigning and education meant that it is now rare to see these fish in UK fishmongers (and they’re very ugly!) but the slab was packed with them here, and they were sold at rock bottom prices, so encouraging further trade. Other deep sea species were on offer.

More deep sea species

The cartilaginous fish are very susceptible to any exploitation. In the UK, the so named “common skate” is nearing extinction. It grows to 3m size, much larger than it’s more widespread cousins, and so any minimum catch size for skates will allow capture of both adult and juvenile common skate, so not leaving enough to breed and sustain the population. In Cascais, it was sad to see very small juvenile rays on the slab. There Is no minimum catch size in EU waters outside 6nm but an ICES report explains that individuals smaller than 40cm have not had opportunity to breed yet and should be avoided. All rays and skate are on the MCS “Fish to avoid” list.

Very small rays - individuals need to reach 40cm to breed

The slab also boasted an intact small shark. Again, this species is slow to reproduce and populations have tumbled in recent decades. At least this one was killed on capture and not stripped of its fins before begin thrown back alive to slowly suffocate, as is the fate of so many of these wonderful predators, even in EU waters. Shark fins continue to fetch an artificially high price and MCS campaign for fins to be landed naturally attached until we can campaign to remove the demand for such products.

Shark on the slab - at least its fins are attached

On the plus side, the marina is also home to good numbers of large barrel jellyfish which we watched hunt this morning. It was a good lesson in how similar these look to a grubby supermarket plastic carrier bag when lolling in the water and my children are keen to ensure they pass on the lesson of ensuring plastic waste stays out of the sea.