Bycatch becomes Environment Issue

With hundreds of thousands of whales and dolphins dying every year after being accidentally entangled in fishing gear, the world must take concrete steps during the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting starting today in Slovenia to lessen the serious threat posed by bycatch.
Governments gathered in Slovenia will also have the chance to create a vast new protected area that would be off-limits to whaling – the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary. This is the first IWC sanctuary proposal to include a management plan.

Over fifty species of cetaceans inhabit the area’s waters, including seven – blue, fin, sei, common minke, Antarctic minke, humpback and southern right whales – that are highly migratory. The proposed sanctuary would offer protection to these whale populations, which benefit coastal communities across the southern hemisphere through whale watching activities and non-lethal research. In addition to these issues, the IWC meeting will also discuss the need to address whale strandings and the importance of whales for the marine ecosystem, as well as urgent measures to protect endangered small cetaceans, such as the removal of all active and ghost gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California to halt the vaquita’s slide towards extinction and the closure of net and trawl fisheries within the habitat of the equally endangered Maui’s dolphin.

I think this action which is participated from over 80 countries will resolve this critical issues to discuss. I wish this meeting will start global efforts to reduce fisheries bycatch, which kills at least 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises every year. Even so, many countries seeking a permit to kill whales in the name of science. According to this news, Bycatch was a critical factor in the recent extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin in China, and is the greatest threat to endangered North Atlantic right whales and Arabian Sea humpback whales, as well as the critically endangered vaquita in Mexico, Maui and Hector’s dolphins in New Zealand, Baltic harbour porpoises, and many river dolphin species. I think we can treat this evidence by take the lead and helps countries adopt effective measures to mitigate bycatch in both national and international waters.

Reflection based on http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?281850/Bycatch-is-the-biggest-killer-of-whales