From SoutheastAsia to theBlack Sea, fishing nets have become deathtraps for thousands of whales, dolphins and porpoises—species whose survival will be threatened unless fishing methods change.
The World Wildlife Fund, a U.S. based environmental group, lists species threatened by accidental catch, and recommends low cost steps to reduce their entanglement in fishing gear. (41) .Dolphins in the Philippines, India and Thailand are urgent priorities.
Threatened populations include Irrawaddy dolphins in Malampyaya Sound off the Philippines’ Palawan island, about 220 miles south of Manil
A、Only 77 remain.Dolphins also face the threat of traders who sell them to aquariums, especially inAsi
A、
(42) .
The WWF report said up to 3,000 Spinner dolphins may be caught each year in gillnets, which stretch from the sea floor to the surface and are hard for dolphins to see or detect with their sonar.
(43).
Dolphins are also under threat in Indonesia, Myanmar, India’sChilka Lake and Thailand’s Songkhla Lake.
Fishing gear kills thousands of porpoises each year in theBlack Se
A、Atlantic humpback dolphins face the same fate off the coasts of Ghana and Togo inAfrica, as do Franciscana dolphins inArgentina, Uruguay andBrazil. Indo Pacific humpback and bottlenose dolphins often die in nets off the south coast of Zanzibar.
(44) .U.S. fisheries in 1993 2003 introduced changes that reduced by a third the number of dolphins accidentally killed by fishing, or bycatch.But few other countries have followed that example and in much of the rest of the world, progress on bycatch mitigation has been slow to nonexistent.
(45). Slight modifications in fishing gear can mean the difference between life and death for dolphins.