Pelagic trawl fishery for sea
bass
32. The pelagic trawl fishery for sea bass targets
the fish as they migrate from inshore waters out to sea and gather
in large numbers to spawn. The fishery therefore takes place in
the seas off south-west England, anywhere from Start Point in
Devon, through the Celtic Sea and down into the Bay of Biscay.
The fishery is a winter fishery: it starts in November/December
and ends in April/May. The season in which the fishery is carried
out, and the area in which it is prosecuted, coincide with large
numbers of common dolphin strandings on England's south-west coast:
for example, between 1 January and 31 March 2003, 265 dead small
cetaceans were found on the coast of south-west England.[50]
Linda Hingley told us that it is only in the winter months that
she sees common dolphins washed ashore.[51]
She described the animals she finds as showing signs of having
died as a result of by-catch, such as damage to the beak and the
fins, but as being otherwise healthy, "the alpha males, the
alpha females … the breeding population".[52]
33. However, other fisheries are also carried out
off south-west England over the winter months. What implicates
the sea bass fishery, above all others, is data gathered by the
SMRU between 2000 and 2003, using independent observers deployed
on UK vessels prosecuting this fishery. Defra funded the SMRU
to carry out this research. The results of these observations
were:
- 2001: observations of 116 hauls
recorded 53 common dolphins caught
- 2002: observations of 66 hauls recorded 8 common
dolphins caught
- 2003: observations of 131 hauls recorded 30 common
dolphins caught.
The average number of animals taken in a net at one
time was just over four; the maximum observed was ten. Although
observations were made in all months between November and April,
all but one dolphin was recorded in late February and March.[53]
43 
