FISHING boats using illegal drift nets are threatening the survival of dolphins, sharks and loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean Sea.
Most of the boats sail from Morocco and fish, mainly for swordfish, around the Alboran Sea and Strait of Gibraltar. But each year their nets also catch between 15,000 and 19,000 dolphins, and between 82,000 and 107,000 sharks, according to the first field survey of the fishery. Part of the fleet also snared 46 loggerhead turtles in nine months, reports a team led by Sergi Tudela from WWF’s Mediterranean programme, based in Barcelona, Spain.
Thresher, blue and short-fin mako were the shark species caught most often by drift-net fishing in the Mediterranean (Biological Conservation, vol 121, p 65). But the researchers say the animal most threatened by the drift nets is the endangered short-beaked common dolphin. Taking any more than 2 per cent of the dolphins annually would cause the population to decline, according to the International Whaling Commission. But the researchers estimate that the drift-net fleet takes more than 10 per cent of the population each year, posing a severe threat to the animal’s survival.
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