As you know, REWILD is committed to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the oceans, in order to act and reduce animal suffering.
Recently on our Belgian beaches, around twenty seals were found dead stranded, with injuries on the neck and head caused by mechanical action.
Professional fishing using gillnets and entangling nets, deploying nets several kilometers long that are left in place for up to 24 hours, would be the cause. Even if the reason for their death is not due to the ghost nets drifting in the sea, these famous fishing nets are nevertheless the main author of these atrocities.
Informative :
Incidental catches of marine mammals should be considered as one of the negative effects of fishing on the ecosystem.
It should also be borne in mind that any form of fishing has an impact on the ecosystem, and that gillnet and entangling fishing, which is dangerous for marine mammals, has environmental advantages over beam trawling in terms of CO2 emissions, selectivity and bottom disturbance.
Source : RTBF