News

Scotland’s seas are packed full of amazing life – the basking sharks that migrate to our west coast each summer are the world’s second largest fish, the Bass Rock is the world’s largest gannet colony and the cold water coral gardens on the Hebridean Slope hold some of the oldest living creatures on the planet. Some of the species that live in our seas are not just important in themselves; just like the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest or the heather of our own peat bogs, they create and maintain the structure of our interconnected marine habitats. Here we look at where those species live, where they used to live and understand what the future may hold for them…

Healthy seabeds form the foundation of our seas. They are integral to its health and its ability to provide us healthy, sustainable seafood.

Introduction

From vast forests of kelp, to shoals of sandeels, muddy sea lochs to cold water corals, Scotland’s seas are rich in life. These species form an interwoven web of life, the marine ecosystem. Together this connected web provides the living, breathing and working sea that delivers fish to our tables, provides water, oxygen to nourish our lives, and circulates and captures carbon dioxide in a way that helps stabilise our climate. [Read more…]

We recently voiced our concerns about a seafood eco-labelling process for a scallop dredge fishery and have been publicly criticised for doing so. Polarised debate is clearly not in anyone’s interests, but we take accusations about our use of evidence and accuracy very seriously, and so here lay out our evidence and the reasons why our concerns remain accurate and valid. [Read more…]

Open Seas’ mission is to promote more sustainable fishing in Scotland. It is with some regret that we are now challenging the proposed re-certification of the scallop dredge fishery in Shetland.  Unfortunately the possible re-certification of scallop dredging here, under its current management regime, risks green-washing an important certification standard that should represent a benchmark for sustainability.

Scallop dredging is one of the UK’s most damaging forms of fishing. Dredge boats tow heavy rakes with metal teeth several inches long that dig into the seabed, dredging out the scallops. In April of 2017 the severity of damage caused by scallop dredging was revealed when a vessel towed through a well-known flame shell reef in Loch Carron. The killing of species other than scallops and the flattening of seabed habitats, means dredging has and continues to have a profoundly negative impact on the health of our seas. However, it does not have to be this way. Dredging in some [Read more…]

Wrasse are beautiful, charismatic fish that play a key role in the ecosystems of Scottish inshore waters. However, as Scottish salmon farmers now look to ‘cleaner fish’ as a way to address the industry’s sea lice problem, rising commercial demand is having potentially catastrophic impacts on wild stocks of wrasse. We take a look at the issue, find out what we know, what we don’t know and what we really should know about the environmental costs of the unprecedented demand for ‘cleaner fish.’ Our research indicates there is a systemic flaw in current fisheries management, which has failed to take precautionary steps to regulate this new fishery.

 

The sea lice problem

A big commercial concern for salmon farmers is sea lice: natural parasites that biologically weaken the health of salmon by feeding on their flesh and [Read more…]

We published a paper in March 2017 about the impacts of Scottish MPAs. We re-publish it here in full.

Abstract:

• In early 2016 Scottish Government established fisheries restrictions in Scottish Marine Protected Areas to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems.
• The ‘mobile’ fishing sector (i.e. the part of the fishing industry most likely to be affected by these MPA) raised many concerns about the negative impact the restrictions could have on coastal communities.
• A year has now passed and this analysis has been undertaken to assess what impacts the restrictions have had on landings of scallops and Nephrops (the two species most targeted by inshore fisheries) at several key Scottish ports.
• Assessment shows that landed weight and value have not been impacted at the majority of Scottish [Read more…]