Today I filmed the seaweed dredgers in Hustadvika – they are now scraping the sides of the bay.

Having coffee with a friend an hour or so later his daughter came rushing in to say that the Farstad River was full of dead fish and the mattilsynet were down by the river in  force.  I wondered why i had seen such a large group of people.

The river is tidal at the lower end.

About 3 weeks ago we contacted the Mattilsynet about fish with damaged livers – we were told it was normal – we also contacted marine biologists at Nina who said the same.  We spoke to the fiskeriedirektoratet who told us this was definitely not normal.

So now salmon, trout and other fish have been found dead in one of the rivers leading to Hustadvika bay – the liver samples i delivered to the mattilsynet i was asked to remove as they did not have the competence to analyze them.

Nor did Nifes.  Mattilsynet said.

http://www.nifes.no/index.php?page_id=&article_id=4063&lang_id=1

Johan and I have just been down to Ålesund to see Ole martin Sorthe, the leader of the møre and romsdal fiskelaget.

http://www.proff.no/selskap/m%C3%B8re-og-romsdal-fiskarlag/%C3%A5lesund/oppf%C3%B8ringer-uten-bransjetilknytning/Z0I4164O/

We were met quite cordially and offered coffee by OM Sorthe.

I wanted to present the information we had found on the state of the seas and the documents relating to the taretråling we had with us – I think Mr. Sorthe has reached his full interest level in Taretråling a long time ago and much preferred swopping yarns with Johan to listening to more facts, figures and papers.

But none the less in the hour long meeting – without coffee – he was presented with a nice binder, complete with videos and documents and did listen to some of the documents i presented to him even though he was keen to show his lack of interest  by rolling his eyes, sighing heavily and looking at the ceiling.

Is it going to go anywhere?  That i cannot say but we have presented information beyond heresy and possibly sown a seed.

Normally the fishing trips I undertake from Hustadvika lead to catches in the 20 to 30kg region – this is about 3 to 5 times a month.  So the fishing is generally good.

Since before Christmas the cod have been turning up with black livers – the taretrawlers have been I the area that long.

The previous trip took me out to all the places I normally fish and nothing, not even a bite
.

Yesterday I went some 12 kilometres out – fishing all the way and not even a bite – finally I got to the most famous mark in the area and had 1 fish.  Others are remarking the same.

There is some activity on long lining but that is very limited.

So yes definitely taretråling is removing our fish.  The question is – will they come back?

Many people have told us they have seen the taretrawlers fishing illegally, miljøvernforbund has told us they have tried to get  several cases under way but have been unsuccessful.

We have succeeded.  the case took over a year – during this time we were visited on 2 occasions by the police asking us if we were sure of our facts – both times we told them, don’t ask us – look at our pictures and videos.

Over a year passed, finally we asked permission to call the police to find out what was happening.

We recorded the conversation and sent it to the authorities – the case quickly came to a conclusion and we were told that the policeman concerned was under investigation by another force.

Fmc biopolymers and 2 taretrawler skippers got a fine.  Not very much but it made them guilty of a crime – that actually by dictionary definition makes them criminals.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/criminal

Speaking to the Kristiansund paper Tidens krav (https://www.tk.no/) today we were told that FMC biopolymers said that it would criminalize them if they were made to fit ais satellite tracking to their boats – that is so  their position can be verified at any time. Hmm they’ve been found guilty of illegal fishing – they have been found guilty of a crime – that by dictionary definition makes them criminals –

They also said that if they were made to fit ais then all other boats of a similar size should have them too.  I rather think that the only boats that should by law have tracking are those involved in activities that require exact positioning – now i wonder what boats that would refer to?

We believe that if the true situation was revealed by the press about taretråling in Norway then like in other lands it would be stopped very quickly.