SOS on TV

Just recently Border ITV gave a 3and 1/2 minute slot to highlight the
crazy situation where it is illegal to land tope on the English side of
the Solway, but legal on the Scottish side.

This is due to the Scottish Governments' refusal to introduce a
statutory instrument similar to the English Tope (Prohibition of
Fishing) Order 2008 which prohibits fishing for tope other than by rod
and line and sets a 45kg per day tope by-catch limit in commercial
fisheries targeting other species.

The item was shot from Ian Burrett's boat 'On-yer-marks'.

The full version of the video may be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/6hoe6j  (46 MB in mpg format), or http://tinyurl.com/6xghsj , (35MB in Quicktime format).

The government claim there is no need as there is no directed tope  fishery (ie: no commercial interest) though Mr Lochhead has stated he will keep the situation under review - see www.ssacn.org/2008/06/12/parliamentary-answer .

As Ian explains in the video, it only took 3 years to dramatically deplete spurdog in Scottish waters, so one cannot draw a great deal of comfort from Mr Lochhead's statement when one considers how long it takes the government to do anything not of direct benefit to the catching sector - after 13 years there's still no NTZ off Arran.!

--
The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network

www.ssacn.org  - Fish for the future.

A registered Scottish charity RegNo. SC039015