Victory for environmental protection associations. The Council of State ordered the government, Monday, March 20, to close some fishing areas in the Atlantic, in order to preserve dolphins, whose strandings in the Bay of Biscay have multiplied.

At the end of February, Emmanuel Macron had admitted the need for the France to "improve [its] practices" to better protect dolphins. A considerable number of animals are trapped in fishermen's nets, before coming to wash up on the beaches of the Atlantic coast.

And then, one day, it happens on the beach where you walk every day.

Dolphin stranded in Anglet, VVF beach.

The massacre continues, without any concrete action by the government. pic.twitter.com/lHEQ1UyY8X

— Hugo Clément (@hugoclement) March 14, 2023

The Council of State had been seized in 2021 by several environmental associations - France Nature Environment (FNE), Sea Shepherd France and the Association for the Defense of Aquatic Environments (DMA) - who called for suspensions of fishing in the Atlantic. The highest administrative court therefore agreed with them and granted the government six months to implement these bans.

These measures must be in addition to the "acoustic deterrent devices by fishing vessels that have already been deployed," the court said.

Fishermen worried

The Council of State justifies the use of these bans because the current measures "do not guarantee a favorable conservation status of small cetacean species", two of which - the common dolphin and the harbour porpoise - are threatened with extinction, "at least regionally".

"This is of course an important day for all those who love the sea and the few people who have invested their lives in this fight," the DMA association said. Sea Shepherd France, meanwhile, called the decision a "historic victory." "The government is forced to close the most destructive fisheries," said the NGO, which recalls that "this winter again a new intense episode of mortality of common dolphins is observed".

>> To see - Fishing in France: the dolphin, a poorly protected species

"This decision is incomprehensible and will have irreversible effects on French fishing," warned Olivier Le Nezet, president of the National Fisheries Committee. He said he had asked to meet the Minister of Agriculture "urgently" to analyze "the impact of this decision".

"If it is not compensated, it will not be viable, and the State will have to have a substantial checkbook because the closure will leave more than 500 ships docked and it is the whole sector that will toast, economically it is a disaster," responded to AFP Olivier Mercier, fishing boss based in Arcachon whose vessels are equipped with a dolphin repelling device.

Northeast Atlantic dolphins threatened with extinction

According to the LPO, "nearly 1,000 cetacean corpses have been found on the Atlantic coast since December". "The Council of State finally puts an end to the odious agony of dolphins" as it did for "glue trapping [hunting birds with glue, Editor's note], traditional hunts and many other issues that participated in the mistreatment of biodiversity," welcomed the president of the LPO, Allain Bougrain-Dubourg.

Looking reality in the face: Yesterday we exhibited 6 🐬 in Les Sables d'Olonne where many boats come from that we film with 🐬 captures. We look forward to the decision of the Council of State on the closure of fishing zones @HerveBerville @EmmanuelMacron pic.twitter.com/kWWQrygfc8

— Sea Shepherd France (@SeaShepherdFran) March 12, 2023

In a report published in early February, the Pelagis Observatory, which has been recording cetacean strandings on the Atlantic coast since 1970, points out that the dolphin population in the North-East Atlantic has been decreasing for several years and "could become extinct within 40 to 50 years" if nothing is done. In 2020, 1,299 common dolphins were found dead on French shores, a figure that fell to 669 in 2022.

But, knowing that more than 80% of dead dolphins sink or decompose at sea rather than run aground, annual mortality on the Atlantic coasts is estimated at between 8,000 and 11,000 individuals.

>> Read: Hundreds of dolphins dead on Atlantic coast beaches, government called to act

According to the Council of State, the number of dolphin deaths by incidental capture in the Bay of Biscay "exceeds each year the maximum limit to ensure a favourable conservation status in the North-East Atlantic". "The system for monitoring incidental catches remains insufficient to know their extent even more precisely," he also notes.

He therefore ordered additional measures "to make it possible to estimate more accurately the number of annual catches of small cetaceans" and to continue "the strengthening of the observation system at sea".

With AFP

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