Dolphin protection: derogations from winter fishing closure deemed "too important"

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Sameer Al-DOUMY / AFP 21:38 p.m., December 22, 2023

The Council of State on Friday suspended derogations provided for in a decree that prohibits certain boats from fishing in the Bay of Biscay for four weeks in winter, judging them "too important" to hope to reduce the deaths of dolphins accidentally caught in the nets. "These derogations are too important for the closure of fishing to have a sufficient effect on incidental catches to have a chance of reducing the mortality of small cetaceans to a sustainable level as early as 2024," the highest administrative court said in a statement.

A month without "purely theoretical" fishing

This is a new setback for the government which is trying to spare the economic interests of fishermen to the great displeasure of the associations France Nature Environnement (FNE), Sea Shepherd, Défense des milieux aquatiques (DMA) and League for the protection of birds (LPO) which have seized the Council of State several times. The latter recalls that he had already ordered the government, in March, "to close, within six months, fishing areas in the Bay of Biscay for appropriate periods, in order to limit accidental deaths of dolphins and porpoises".

In response, the Secretary of State for the Sea issued a decree in October introducing a one-month fishing ban period in 2024, 2025 and 2026, "from 22 January to 20 February inclusive", for all boats of eight metres or more equipped with certain types of nets. According to the NGOs, the text included "so many derogatory regimes" for the year 2024 that the month without fishing was in fact "purely theoretical".

>> ALSO READ – Fishing Conference: Cities that depend on fishing fear for their future

The Council of State has yet to rule on the merits of the case. In particular, the judge hearing the application for interim measures considers that vessels using pelagic seines - nets used on the surface to encircle schools of fish - should be included in the prohibition. Its decision cites a report by ICES (International Centre for the Exploration of the Sea), the leading international scientific body, according to which pelagic seines "were responsible for about 20% of incidental catches of common dolphins in the Bay of Biscay between 2019 and 2021".

The government has estimated that 600 fishing vessels operate in the Bay of Biscay, a vast maritime area that stretches west of France from the northern coast of Spain to Brittany.

ICES recommends three-month winter closures

The judge pointed out that fishermen who no longer benefit from the derogations could - in the same way as others - be compensated for the loss of earnings. The compensation platform, which announces up to 100% public aid, has already been opened. Even if they did not address this issue during the summary proceedings, the associations also consider that "the minimum conditions set by scientists to guarantee the survival of dolphins" are not respected with a one-month closure.

>> ALSO READ – Fishing nets, "the main cause of dolphin deaths" on the French Atlantic coast

ICES has recommended closures of three months in winter (December to March) and at least one month in summer, periods of peak dolphin mortality. According to FNE, the decision to limit the closure to a single month could at best reduce the slaughter by only 17%, compared to 44% fewer losses for three months. This issue should be addressed at the hearing on the merits. "There is a clear risk of disappearing. Every day adds to the decline of these protected species, this is not acceptable," said the president of the LPO, Allain Bougrain Dubourg, during the summary hearing on 12 December.

He also insisted that the associations had "nothing against fishermen". ICES has estimated that around 9,000 common dolphins die each year from incidental capture on the French Atlantic coast. A fraction of them wash up on the coast. The Pelagis Observatory recorded 1,380 strandings of small cetaceans between December and April 2022 on the Atlantic coast.