A ban on discarding unwanted fish into the sea will be difficult to comply with, researchers have claimed, the BBC reports.
Boats having to land unwanted fish caught
in their nets started being phased in at the start of the year, under European
laws.
Throwing dead fish back into the sea had
increased due to strict EU quotas on which fish could be landed in a bid to
conserve stocks.
The University of Strathclyde said it would
pose the industry problems.
The ban is part of a new deal on fishing
quotas and industry rules that was reached after negotiations in Brussels.
The ban came into force in January for
species such as herring and mackerel, and will take effect a year later for cod
and haddock.
The Strathclyde study concluded reducing
waste and improving fish stocks was uncertain.
Prof Mike Heath, who led the research,
said: "The campaign to change the CFP (Common Fisheries Policy) and get
the discard ban onto the statute book was based on the assertion that half of
all fish caught are discarded, and that EU quota restrictions are to blame.
"But our comprehensive assessment of
discarding in the North Sea shows that's not the case.
"The wasteful practice of over-quota
discarding has to be stopped but our study shows that the fundamental reason
for the increasing proportion of catch being discarded is that the stocks have
become more dominated by undersized fish.
"This is a legacy of overfishing in
the past."
Dr Robin Cook, who also took part in the
research, said: "The discard ban will force skippers to use up the storage
capacity aboard their vessels bringing ashore fish for which there is no
significant market.
"This will have a detrimental effect
on the profitability of the fishing industry, with no real benefit to the
stocks. Further improvements in the performance of fishing gears are needed to
overcome this, so that small fish are no longer caught."
Read more HERE.
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