Anglers in protest at EU proposals to sign up in Falmouth (From This is The West Country)

Anglers in protest at EU proposals to sign up in Falmouth

3:10pm Monday 26th January 2009

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On Saturday, Neil Parish, MEP for Cornwall will be in Falmouth to help launch a national petition opposing suggestions that all leisure anglers log their catches.

The petition will then circulate all over the region and elsewhere and placed on line. At the end of March the MEP will present it in the European Parliament and to Secretary of State, Hilary Benn in Westminster.

The launch is at 9.30am on Saturday at The Falmouth Watersports Centre where local sea anglers as well as John Brooks from the Sea Anglers Federation will be present.

Falmouth and The Lizard are among the most popular areas for sea angling and thousands of fishermen use the facilities annually.

If the European Commission has its way all sea anglers will be forced to keep records of all fish they catch. All boats which are used to catch fish, even if only once a year, will have to be registered as fishing vessels under the Common Fisheries Policy.

Protestors claim that due to the Common Fisheries Policy, over two million tonnes of fish caught commercially are already thrown back into the sea every year because they are over quota, the wrong species or are simply not worth enough money when sold.

“Recreational fishing is not the cause of failing fish stocks and shouldn't be targeted as such,” says the petition.

“We therefore call on the European Commission to leave recreational fishing well alone and to concentrate on widespread reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. We also call on the British government to stand up to the Commission and not to cave into these demands, which will affect over 1 million anglers in the UK and which threatens the viability and future of the sport itself.”

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