Save our Sea Bass

Thank you so much for signing the Save Our Sea Bass petition, it has been a massive help.

We are now closing this petition because:
a) we are widening our focus to all the EU Fisheries Ministers; and
b) we are running a new, urgent, campaign to support the EU proposals for a 42cm MCRS and monthly Vessel Catch Limits.

We have set up a new campaigning website: http://www.saveourseabass.org/
The website makes it easy for people to send emails, supporting the EU proposals, to all the EU Fisheries Ministers. Please spare a few minutes to send an email.

Please also sign our new petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/528/525/477/vote-for-the-eu-commissions-sea-bass-proposals/
Finally, many, many apologies to those of you who signed this 38 Degrees petition in the last few days and are now being asked to sign another petition – in a perfect World we would have had the new website and petition lined up at the same time, but we didn’t quite manage to make that happen.

Hi –please see full update at: https://www.facebook.com/BernhardFriessseabass

Good news: there is a temporary ban on pair trawlers fishing for bass in spawning areas and the EU has asked Member States to cut bass landings in 2015.

Bad news: the politicians say it is not possible to cut landings by 80% in 2015.

The stock is falling off a cliff already and soon it will fall to a level where there are not enough sea bass to regenerate the stock. - then it will all be over for the sea bass.

So we need to email the politicians and tell them that we demand that they cut landings by 80% in 2015. This is about the survival of the sea bass.

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];

You can also use https://www.writetothem.com to write to your MP and your MEPS.

I met with George Eustice and DEFRA last week. They agree that action on Sea Bass is urgently needed. They are proposing to the EU Council (today/tomorrow) a catch limit of 1.5 tonnes per vessel per month in areas IV and VII - they believe this will stop the fishing in offshore spawning areas. After the EU Council they will turn their attention to introducing UK measures. Fingers and toes crossed that the other Member States agree with the UK proposal!

Some good news from the EU Commission: they intend that the regulations will impose severe restrictions on the trawlers fishing on spawning grounds, subject to the Fisheries Ministers of the Member States agreeing it in mid-December.

I am going to see the EU Commission (who last week issued some very poor draft regulations for sea bass) in Brussels next Thursday and will tell them about this petition and say that bigger cuts are needed for commercial fishing to meet the 80% cuts in 2015 advised by the scientists.

The EU has just released draft sea bass fishing Regulations for 2015. They come nowhere near to achieving the necessary 80% cut.

We really need to step up our efforts to spread the word about this campaign.

We need a complete ban on trawling of spawning aggregations of sea bass, yet the regs fail to make any real impact on this.

Incredibly, there are no other restrictions proposed for any other form of commercial sea bass fishing, ie targeted bass fishing or non-targeted (by-catch) fishing (this latter represents 40% of all landing alone).

And while the EU has completely failed to deal with the commercial sea bass fishing problem, they are introducing a 1 fish per person per day bag limit on recreational anglers - ie picking off the small guys who can't shout as loud as the commercial fishers! Nice work EU!

Henry Gilbey has kindly posted about this petition on his blog and included some good background information about the problem. http://www.henry-gilbey.com/blog/could_there_be_a_total_collapse_of_our_bass_stocks