FISH IN THE WATER

Fishing is as old as man. It has been practiced for centuries in rivers, in coastal water and in lagoons..

Lobster, calamari, white bream and mullet weregreatly appreciatedalready at the time of the Roman Empire.

DD DIVERSIFICATION AND SPECIALIAZATION OF FISHING

● from demersal to pelagic species in 1970 2/3 of the world fisheries was made of pelagic fish ● spread of industrial fishing to the developing Countries (Perù, Tailandia,Corea….) ●improvement in the technology of fishing boats ● facilities on land ●cold chain ● network marketing ● professional qualification ● EEZ ( Exclusive Economic Zone) ●acquaculture development

FISHING IN ITALY

Around ports there are fish markets and the warehouses for the storage and the processing of fish.

•In Italy the development of fishing is limited. The fishing areas are:• the Adriatic coast • the coasts of Sicily, in particular tuna and swordfish•Tyrrhenian coast

. We breed eels in Comacchio and in the Po

delta, mussels and oysters in the Gulf of Taranto and

the Tyrrhenian

FISHING IN ITALY• 45000 FISHERMEN• 750000 MT FISHERY• 1864 DRAG TO FUND • 162 FUND• 254 SEINE NETS• 850 DREDGES• 9575 FISHING CRAFT• 17 FLYING TONNARE • 33 OCEAN FISHING

WHAT IS CAUGHT IN ITALY ?

The group of the most important fish species caught in Italy is made of:

• cuttlefish● clams, hake, sardines, white shrimps

● white and red mullet, swordfish, cob,mackerel, sea snails, albacore tuna, shrimp, red tuna, red mullet, octopus musk;

● octopus and squid.

FISHING AND SEA MARKET IN ITALY AND IN LAZIO

● Italy, though a peninsula with a strong seafaring tradition, wet for nearly 8,000 km by the sea, rich in fresh water ponds, is not a major consumer of fish products

•   In recent years the consumption of fish has increased dramatically but the demand was mainly satisfied by imports.

• One reason is the fragmentation of landing sites (about 800) of fishery and the abundance of fish markets that are unable to concentrate production as a modern distribution, supplying the location far from the coast, should do.

EMPLOYMENT IN LAZIO

• Companies operating small-scale fisheries are in the form of sole proprietorship, or more often in the form of cooperatives.Fish belongs to that particular category of activities which are hard to find personnel to be assigned to work on board fishing vessels, for both highly specialized staff that is required, in terms of titles enabling navigation,and the various activities taking place on board

• Not least we must consider the fact that the job of the fisherman is viewed as unattractive, hard and tiring, with respect to young people entering the labor market.

FISH AND SEA ECONOMY IN ITALY AND IN LAZIO

The fishing fleet operating in Lazio is displaced, under an administrative point of view, between the ports of Civitavecchia, Rome and Gaeta.It consists of 650 boats: more than two hundred are trawls, the rest practice small craft fishing and bivalve shellfish harvesting.

EMPLOYMENT IN LAZIO

• Directly on the boats are employed:about 600 people in trawling  almost 900 in the small fishing

• In recent years the number of immigrants engaged in this field has greatly increased.

• In some navies, such as those at Anzio and Fiumicino, this figure assumes a particular relevance so important as to be of greater weight than the number of employees of Italian origin

Marine food chain

The marine food chain: each species feeds the upper one

Marine food chain

71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans that are a giant ecosystem. As for plants and animals on earth, there are also marine food chains.

• Phytoplankton is the single-celled algae that floats in the oceans, and - like plants - is capable of photosynthesis, forming biomass from carbon dioxide and water with the help of light and nutrients

• Phytoplankton serves as a nutrient for small animals such as mollusks, called zooplankton.

• All the small organisms in water, both plants and animals make up the plankton and are food for fish.

• Man also is a predator of the marine food chain and exploits its species through fishing

 

 

• In any ecosystem there is a dynamic balance between the environment and the species that occupy it, mainly based on trophic relationships.

So fishing can modify this balance…..

…and the effects of overfishing can be summed as follows:

FISHING IN THE SEAS TODAY

Since the 1990s, despite improved techniques of capture and the discovery and exploitation of new sea stocks, the global fish production has entered a phase of stagnation with regard to the "on wild fisheries. “It is unlikely in the near future that the contribution of fisheries in the sea to the demand for fish products may increase significantly

because most of the fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished.• The excessive levy on most of the world's fisheries combined with

the failure to comply with the size of reproduction, has resulted in many areas of biodiversity alteration that causes the phenomenon known as "fishing down the food web. " In practice, the rarity of the species "precious" that have a long life cycle and are found in higher levels of the food chain (meat eaters), makes fishing turn to species placed at lower levels (herbivores, planctofagi), and shorter life cycle.

• The marketing of species that until recently were regarded as "waste“ is a clear and tangible sign of this disturbing phenomenon.

• You should never forget that fishing, like all the economic activities, is affected by market forces but is also subject to rules of "Mother Nature"

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INTERACTION BETWEEN FISHERIES AND ENVIRONMENT

A NET FOR EACH FISH: FISHING TECHNIQUES AND EFFECTS ON THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

TRAWLSBottom trawling, introduced in the '60s is

responsible for the 60-80% of the fish caught in the Mediterranean and all over the world.

It can be done by net in the form of huge bags with a  mouth 50 m wide that are dragged on depths deeper than 50 meters, and "plow" the bottom picking up all together (algae, sponges, corals, fish, turtles, etc.).

It is a very efficient trapping method , quantitative but not very selective, as, beyond useful species for commercial purposes (called target species), it also collects those species that are not useful, discarded, often injured and killed (called non target ). approximately 40% of the contents of each trawl, baycatch

The use of bottom trawls alter:         - the eating habits of some predators, such as dolphins, waiting for the baycatch and becoming dependent on man.         - The plowing of the seabed has caused over the years, the desertification of areas due to frequent fishing

• In the Mediterranean, fishing with bottom

trawl is used to pick up white shrimp, octopus, squid and hake        In Italy it is practiced by less than 3 000 boats,        In the U.S., since the 80s, it is mandatory for shrimp fishing vessels the presence of devices that identify and exclude turtles and dolphins from trawling nets.

SEINERS• Seiners are normally used for fish

that live in herds, both small in size (such as sardines or anchovies) or larger (such as mackerel) or large (such as tuna). They are arranged around the shoals of fish attracted to an area.

• Seiners (closing) are huge rectangular networks. They can even reach 800 m lenght and 120 m height. If light sources are used to attract the fish under the boat they are called lampare. Once tuna nets were used, other than purse seiners, made of mazes and permanently anchored to the seabed off the coast of the Mediterranean to trap the tuna at the end of their long migration from the Atlantic Ocean.

• Today there is a modern version of the trap, called flying tonnara, which is just a closing purse seine, towed by a vessel in the open sea to catch tuna while still swimming towards the Mediterranean Sea.

NETS• Nets are those left in the water, waiting

for the fish to remain trapped. Fixed nets are deployed on the seabed and anchored to it by appropriate plumbing.Depending on the species to capture and on the depth of operation they vary in shape, size and assembly.

•  In the Mediterranean Sea, these networks are used to catch squid, octopus, red mullet, hake, gurnard, redfish and sea bream. In Italy about 9000 small-size vessels use nets, hooks, lines and traps. Some of these, called the “death walls”, have been banned in the Mediterranean Sea either by the European Union or by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna. Despite the ban, this kind of network continues to be used illegally for the capture of pelagic species of great value, such as tuna and swordfish. It is estimated that in the Mediterranean still operate about 600 vessels with gill nets, of which about 100 belong to Italy. The environmental consequences due to the use of these networks are devastating, particularly for biodiversity.. Between 1986 and 1990, in fact, these networks were responsible for 83% of mammals caught in fishing operations (whales and dolphins)

IMPACT OF FISHING ON

SEA ENVIRONMENT

Fishing operations lead to changes into the structure of marine habitat and can affect :

• diversity• composition• biomass• productivity of associated

biota.

EFFECTS ON THE BIODIVERSITY

EFFECTS ON TROPHIC AND COMPETITIVE INTERACTIONS

EFFECTS ON ECOSYSTEMS: ● direct alteration of habitat by

fishing tools

● indirect alteration of habitat

● impact of lost or abandoned fishing tools

EFFECTS UPON THE STRUCTURE OF FISH COMMUNITIES

A case-study : Shark fishing What’s the situation?

for consumption for fins

by mistake

75 million sharks are caught every year

Something’s wrong: ends don’t meet…

In many cases we kill more sharks than they are born. This level of catch is not sustainable. Sharks need protection to survive.

• Sharks are vulnerable.

They grow slowly, reproduce later in life, live longer and have fewer youngs.

• We have fixed limits in herring fishing… why not for sharks?

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Meat is the less valuable part of a shark, as the photos taken in Italian supermarkets show.

Pieces of emery: 7.99 € for kg Slices of dog fish:

6.50 € for kg

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The most valuable part of sharks…

Shark fishing is a profitable business. A single basking shark, a protected species in most of the world, was sold for 7,000 €

Fins are the most valuable part and are sold at high cost.

• The shark fin soup may cost up to 300 € per dish.

• Dried fins reach a rate of 500 € per kg.

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Finning

• Finning was banned in the UE, but evident gaps in the law make the rules less efficacious.

• Fins and carcass can be landed separately – so controls are impossible!

It’s the practice of removing the fins of a shark, rejecting the carcass to the sea, to make room on board for more valuable fish.

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A world with no sharks? Which consequences?

The marine ecosystems are interconnected and complex frames: that’s why removing top predators from an area might have unexpected cascade consequences.

Shark overfishing in some Caribbean reef has led to an increase in groupers, which led to a dramatic decrease in herbivorous fish and this has caused a modification to the reefs dominated by algae.

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MacMedus’

Jellyfish burger, OUR FUTURE FOOD?Overfishing has reducedjellifish predators and climatechange has increased oceanTemperatures.Jellies thrive in empty warmeroceans.Without changes in global fishing policies the seafood ofthe future is rubbery…………

thejellyfish burger is so close tobecoming a reality, we cantest it….