Eco-Vessel’s Haul Highlights Illegal Octopus Fishing in Greece

From July 1 to September 30, food traps are prohibited due to the fact that it’s the octopus breeding season. Credit: albert kok, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikipedia

The biology enactment Sea Shepherd’s vessel, the Sea Eagle, has completed a large cognition successful the Thracian Sea and Thermaic Gulf, retrieving tens of thousands of amerciable octopus traps and hundreds of kilometers of rope.

The ship, which docked successful Thessaloniki’s port, volition beryllium unfastened to the nationalist until Sunday to rise consciousness astir the destructive practice.

Massive retrieval of octopus traps and consciousness Campaign

During a 41-day mission, the Sea Eagle collected a staggering 34,546 integrative traps and 288 kilometers of enactment from captious marine habitats. The operation, which covered areas including Alexandroupoli, Kavala, and Thessaloniki, besides successfully released astir 1,500 octopuses that were trapped, galore of them successful the process of breeding.

An octopus trap was retrieved successful the Greek seas. Credit: AMNA/Nikos Arvanitidis

The caput of Sea Shepherd Greece, Valia Stefanoudaki, explained that this “harvest” exposes a wide occupation of amerciable sportfishing and integrative pollution.

Illegal octopus sportfishing is simply a menace to the ecosystem successful Greece

According to Stefanoudaki, the traps, which are often improvised from integrative containers weighted with cement, are a important menace to the ecosystem.

“From July 1 to September 30, food traps are prohibited due to the fact that it’s the octopus breeding season,” she told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA). Despite this, they recovered a world of “thousands of traps” connected the seabed, with galore containing octopuses successful the midst of giving birth. Stefanoudaki estimates that implicit 500,000 amerciable traps whitethorn beryllium connected the seabed of the Thracian Sea alone, causing immense biology damage.

Legal loopholes and trouble successful enforcement

The Sea Shepherd’s vessel, the Sea Eagle, docked successful Thessaloniki. Credit: AMNA

The amerciable traps, dissimilar ineligible ones, deficiency the indispensable licence numbers, making it astir intolerable for authorities to place and good the owners.

The authorities besides has a loophole, arsenic portion octopus sportfishing with traps is prohibited successful the summer, it’s hard to beryllium however an octopus was caught erstwhile it is served arsenic a crockery successful a restaurant. This makes enforcement challenging and allows the destructive signifier to continue.

The Sea Eagle is scheduled to sail for its last destination successful Italy aft its nationalist sojourn to Thessaloniki.

Related: Is Eating Octopus Moral? Alexander Payne Calls connected Greeks to Stop Habit