Hugh’s Fish Fight begun lastnight
The Fish Fight season on Channel 4 began last night, with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall taking a look at fishing quotas, witnessing their impact on the business of fishing and then growing increasingly angry. All beneath that curly mop and behind those trademark spectacles.
From what we saw, he had a right to be incensed – as does every misguided chip-eater (I include myself among them) who thought they were doing fish a favour by opting out of the cod option when rolling up at the chippy.
Actually, it is probably wise to avoid cod in favour of any less popular fish, simply to stop the trade being so white fish-focused as it turns out, but if you think of cod as a depleted stock, almost an endangered species, according to last night’s show you’d have a skewed image of what’s really going on.
The truth is fishermen land tons of cod every single day, completely legally. The problem is, if they’ve already filled their allowable quota, so any subsequent catches have to be thrown back.
Dead.
Despite being completely edible.
And it’s not just cod – we were shown multiple varieties that, thanks to bureaucracy, are thrown back into the sea as ‘discard’ simply because of some mad paperwork.
The fishermen, the distributors and the fishmongers were all instantly able to identify the problem and suggest a better solution – the most pertinent being that they only be allowed to fish on limited time, but that in that time they can sell all they catch. Otherwise, as things stand, they’re essentially nuking an entire planet in the hope they might uproot a couple of apple trees.
Their argument that cod is plentiful and that rumours of any demise are myth-making were balanced by a scientist who claimed that numbers are starting to rise again following protective measures, but nobody in this piece could argue that the discard of vast amounts of completely edible product wasn’t stupid.
The Minister for Fisheries was equally appalled and went to great lengths to explain that he hoped to change things by 2012, before being tested on his fish knowledge and coming up woefully short. 2012 is quite a long way off, and it’s never a surprise to see a politician trying to buy some time. Despite his joining in with Hugh FW’s rallying cry, it’ll be interesting to see where he stands on the issue a few weeks into the process when he’s actually called upon to do something.
Tonight, Hugh FW looks at the side-effects of tuna fishing, C4 at 9pm.
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