Fish Traps Explosive Decompression Part 1

Part 1 of a short documentary PSA on damage to reef fish and the reef environment caused by the use of fish traps.
part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glcGsIOojFI

This video shows the damage and mortal injuries to non-targeted, undersized and protected species when fish traps are used in the harvest of food fish. This video also shows how abandoned ghost traps continue to kill targeted and non-targeted species without any harvest for as long as they remain intact in the ocean.

The footage was originally shot in 1992 for the fight to ban the gear in Florida and the surrounding federal waters, now some fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico want permission to use this gear again by overturning the 2007 ban on fish traps in the Gulf of Mexico. We have remastered the original footage to raise awareness for the fight to keep this gear banned.

Please watch this video and write to the Gulf Council to let them know that allowing Fish Traps will have dire consequences on gulf fish stocks.

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glcGsIOojFI

gulfcouncil@gulfcouncil.org

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• fish
• traps
• killed
• nmfs
• gfmc
• bycatch
• death
• fishery
• pots
• grouper
• snapper
• reef
• ecology
• wasteful
• inefficient

[182436hike]

A: Unlike shellfish, scaled finfish have a swim bladder for buoyancy control - a chamber full of gas roughly in the middle of their body. There are also small areas of gas up behind the eyes and in other places.

[182436hike]

The amount of gas contained in these areas is determined by depth and increased/decreased osmotically from the circulatory system like gases passing through your lungs into/out of the blood stream. When the fish is brought up from depth the water pressure decreases causing the gas to expand, much faster than it can be metabolized. The expanding gasses crush internal organs, blow them out through the anus and do other damage.

[182436hike]

I gotta tell you,  it's amazing the responses you get putting up a video like this. Those looking for a laugh with their responses are the most irrelevant. The ones calling us "heartless" for blowing up the fish in this video are too intellectually challenged to get the point. make the point here.

[182436hike]

At the the time we shot this video THOUSANDS of traps like these were being pulled every week killing hundreds of thousands of fish. I repeat that the trappers were lying their asses off to the regulators by denying that this carnage happened at all. The ONLY way to prove that they were lying and to demonstrate the reality was to SACRIFICE this small sampling of fish and species. Our video helped lead to banning traps in the Gulf of Mexico thus saving MILLIONS of individual fishes.

[182436hike]

Yesterday, February 3, 2010 the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council told the potential fish trappers to go to Hell and said they will NOT even discuss the possibility of allowing fish traps back in the Gulf of Mexico. Reality wins out over trapper propaganda. Trappers: Get it through your heads that fish traps are a bad gear type that should be given the same consideration as dynamite fishing. Do us all a favor and don't bring it up again.

[182436hike]

Very often the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has been more inclined to kiss commercial fishing interest asses than employ common sense. Let's hope that this trend ends and the would be trappers are told to go to hell.

[mtv565]

I fail to understand why the fishes died but the shellfishes lived.

[lolnoob211]

I think it should remain banned cause how would u like it ifi blow ur arm off well that's what the fish feel bann it for life

[BabysFace]

I was hoping to see them explode

[guninhatersdown]

bann fish traps but still collect aquarium marine fish for our aquarium view

[ohu8one2008]

Nice music, cook them up and use the angel fish for bait to catch something worth eating. You could have saved those guys if you would have popped the air bladder and dropped them back so they could go back to the bottom. The crabs are too small so you want to let them go. Happy fishing and if you want to see more fish get bugeyed go on a Deep Sea fishing trip. They are a blast.

[just1zoo]

killing the fish just to make your piont makes you the same as the guuys who ues the traps........heartless how could you!