The Kill Rate is Horrific - The Solution is Simple

By now I think many, maybe most, people have heard of the 1,100 savagely mutilated dolphins that drifted onto France's coast. In fact, the La Rochelle University's National Center for Scientific Research said the dolphin bodies showed extreme levels of mutilation.

At the risk of sounding like a fisheries expert, there is a very common-sense solution to the issue of over-fishing and killing everything in sight, and it will quickly solve the problem of the slaughter of marine mammals like these 1,100 mutilated mammals. But France isn't the only country familiar with dead dolphins - world-wide the number of dead dolphins and other sea life is appalling: Peru, Great Britain, France, Mumbai, Japan, the United States...the list of countries allowing this to happen is shocking. This could easily be stopped.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who's having perhaps a worse time of it than even President Trump, has a strong pro-ecology stance and his slogan, "Make the Planet Great Again," is often repeated by him and his ecology minister. It appears as though Macron's mantra isn't terribly effective, however, and much like the riots that rocked Paris for weeks, the dolphin massacre is arousing the ire of French citizens. It takes a vicious, cruel heart not to be alarmed and saddened by the unnecessary death of so many beautiful, harmless creatures - unless, of course, you're a Japanese dolphin hunter in Taiji Bay.

So, what's causing the untimely death of these dolphins? (And this has been happening for years.) Simply put:  net fishing. What's causing the rapidly diminishing number of fish worldwide? Net fishing. There is absolutely no reason or excuse for these fisheries. The oceans would never run out of fish if net fishing was outlawed and fishermen had to use hook and line. If you want to have sustainable fisheries, net fishing must be eliminated. If you want to stop raping the oceans of every creature imaginable, do away with net fishing. Want to stop destroying the ocean beds? Stop net fishing.

The problem with net fisheries is the nets catch any and all fish that are in the net's reach, and these are monstrous nets, some stretching one to two miles long and 10 to 50 feet high. (They can be even longer.) Most of the fish and other creatures trapped in these nets die - few are thrown back alive. In the case of the dolphins, fishermen slice the dolphins to bits so they don't have to cut their nets.

We wonder why we're running out of fish. We wonder why sea species are becoming extinct. STOP NET FISHERIES! Yearly this fishery is killing millions of fish. Scientists predict that the current rates of fishing will drive the dolphin population to extinction - the fish too.