Why are our fish missing.

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At Hustadvika the fishing has been nearly always good – sometimes though the fish disappear for some time – but they come back.

This year the fishing has been really bad – the fish disappearing from shallow water to much deeper – the rocks which usually had an abundance of small coalfish empty.

Fishing on the bigger shoals the fish are sometimes there but in strange places – down beside the rocks as if they were hiding or sheltering, and then only on one side and then suddenly gone.

Ashore at Askevågen, Vikan – there has been massive activity with the seaweeed trawlers.

Researching seaweed it was interesting to find out that they have very strong defence chemicals – in fact some even produce these defense chemicals in sympathy with damaged plants without being damaged themselves – these are mainly phlorotannins, Iodine, Bromine and later hydrogen sulphide as the damaged plants that are still attached start to rot.

According to research by the Norwegian marine biologists this effect can last for up to a year-

Fish are extremely sensitive to all these compounds – examining the tidal flow from askevågen – Vikan and yes it goes over the top of the rocks, spreading way out to sea and along the coast.

Further there is evidence that it is even affecting the lug worm beds at Kråkholm over 20 km away.

June 16 2013

monday 4.november 2025

At the seaweed trawling conference in Molde in 2018 Harald Bredahl a qualified marine biologist and responsible for the seaweed trawlers harvest said that he and Henning Steen a major figure in Norwegian marine biological research had discussed this and neither had heard of defence chemicals in Laminaria.

In Kjell Magnus Norderhaugs article on Nrk the national news station – he said that Norway had lost 5,000 sq kilometers of seaweed forest and that it was due to Global warming – he made no mention in this article about seaweed trawling.

Following research into norwegian seaweed trawling papers it is interesting to note there seem to be no mention at all about seaweed chemical defences.

In fact the only one we can find is in an unpublished paper by Nordenhaug in which he says very low concentrations strongly effect cod and coalfish.

If this is correct then it completely destroys the industrys stance that seaweed trawling is sustainable – in fact it even points to the massive changes in the marine ecology on our coast and the reason why.

This is most interesting because the earliest research we can find on commercial seaweed harvesting  a paper published in 1924 by the director of the plymouth marine biolgical laboratories – it says that if you clear away a patch in the laminaria seaweed forests seaurchins tend to move in and destroy the forest.

In 2000 it was noted that an area above Trondheim had a completely denuded seabed due to seaurchin predation – this area was some 2,000 sq km – the cause was put down to overfishing of cod which eat seaurchins –

Sea urchins have an important role – they clear organic matter from the seabed but they need to be kept in check, otherwise they attack the seaweed itself – This job is mainly done by many species of fish some of which are specially adapted to eating seaurchins but if they are driven away by poison plumes then the population explodes.

This chimes with what we have been told by other fishermen and landowners– sometimes just one pass of a seaweed trawler and the seabed becomes a urchin barren – other times especially if they hold themselves to regulations then they can harvest many times.

If one follows the path of seaweed for the alginate industry and study the process of production it is clear that animal epiphytes such as tube worms – small mussels etc make the production of alginate difficult – this is why the industry prefers younger plants than grow naturally.

So harvesting occurs every 4 or 5^th year and it takes between 6 to 9 years for the seaweed beds to return to their former biodiversity and abundance – this means that pretty much the entire coast is effected by seaweed trawling in fact it is almost as if the industry is conditioning the seaweed forest for alginate production.– I am by no means an expert in marine biology – what I know must be common knowledge in the community – there must be extreme political or financial pressure to achieve this without the public becoming aware – further, for the regulating bodies not to put a full stop on these activities is to say the least against Norways grunnlåven 112.

These are maps downloaded from the fiskeriedirektoratets home page showing the harvesting areas for laminaria hyperborea on the Norwegian coast 13-12-2025.

overall view

enlargement of harvesting zones mid Norway – the darker areas are currently active-

close up of area currently harvested at Askevågen – Hustadvika.

The areas being currently harvested would produce plumes of defense chemicals following the tidal currents along the coast and swirling out to sea – as we have seen the effects travel many tens of kilometers – certainly far enough to reach the next zone currently being harvested.

Essentially this means that the state is knowingly sanctioning criminal activity which is effecting the livelihood of coastal fishers and others along pretty much the entire coast of Norway

In connection with this Kjell Magnus Nordenhaug in his article in the Norwegian national news service said that the estimated cost to the Norwegian people of the vanishing seaweed forest is about 7 billion kroner strangely enough about what the industry earns in destroying the seaweed forest.https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/xl/omfattende-tang–og-taredod-koster-norge-7-milliarder-i-aret-1.17542729

Having attended and filmed the conference on seaweed trawling at Runde and at Trondheim it was strange to see no mention by the major marine biologists present of the damage seaweed trawling does – the only voice of dissent was at Runde in 2009 when Svein Håkon Lauritzen presented his paper on cormorants being unable to find enough food after seaweed trawling – this was soundly critiscised by Jostein Vea who says he is responsible for developing seaweed trawling on the Norwegian coast.

It was interesting to note that at the Trondheim conference seaweed trawling was not critiscised but harvesting by another mechanical means was, it was almost as if the representatives from the marine biology world were there to ensure there was no damage to the reputation of the seaweed trawling industry.

In fact it is almost as if the seaweed trawling industry owns the majority of Norways marine biologists.