Fisheries
Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Written answers and statements, 7 April 2005
Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth & Camborne, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many cetaceans have been reported stranded during the 2004–05 season of the pair trawl sea bass fishery.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Nature Conservation and Fisheries), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Exeter, Labour)
The pair trawling sea bass fishery season usually starts in November and continues until April and fishing for sea bass takes place in the south-west Approaches. From
All strandings found in the south-west cannot be solely attributed to the pair trawling sea bass fishery. These figures include stranded dead cetaceans, live strandings and carcasses seen floating at sea. Only 12 of the 90 cetaceans that were stranded were definitely confirmed as bycatch. The data were obtained under the Defra-funded Cetacean and Turtle Strandings Scheme, carried out by the Natural History Museum in partnership with the Institute of Zoology and Scottish Agricultural College.