This decision, which has already been implemented in 2024 and could also be implemented in 2026, divides environmental defenders and fishing professionals.
Hundreds of fishermen temporarily unemployed. From this Wednesday, January 22, and for four weeks, fishing is prohibited in the Bay of Biscay in order to preserve dolphins.
This measure helped to divide accidental catches of small cetaceans by four last winter. For around ten years, the number of accidental catches of dolphins in the area has exceeded the sustainable level estimated at 4,900 deaths maximum, according to ICES, an international scientific reference body.
Under the influence of an infringement procedure from the European Commission and pressed to act by the Council of State, contacted by environmental associations, the government ordered this “spatio-temporal” closure of the fishing mainly for boats over eight meters in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“On a des solutions”
From Finistère to the Spanish border, around 300 boats will remain at the dock until February 20, benefiting from government compensation of 80% of their turnover. This does not extinguish the discontent of the profession, convinced that technological alternatives exist to reduce this phenomenon.
“It’s no use at all,” says David Le Quintrec, a fisherman in Lorient and president of the French Union of Artisanal Fishermen, to BFMTV.
“We have solutions to avoid accidental captures, such as for example the scarer, which is used to ward off dolphins when we arrive at our fishing zones. There are others, ropes where there are corks integrated with marbles inside so that the dolphins hear them”, he emphasizes again.
For his part, still at BFMTV, Johnny Wahl, president of the professional fishermen's union Synadepa, assures him, “no one is against protecting dolphins.”
“But we want it to be proven. Personally I have never caught a dolphin in my life, nor have my colleagues, some have died, but they died before and the fishing net takes everything there is in it. background,” he argues.
Real effects?
The key to this measure is a drop in the number of dolphin deaths by accidental capture: 1,450 from December 2023 to March 2024 on the Atlantic coast and the Western Channel, compared to 6,100 on average between 2017 and 2023, according to the Pelagis institute which coordinates the National Stranding Network.
“It’s effective, the figures prove it,” underlines Jérôme Spitz, co-director of the institute based in La Rochelle, who specifies that “common dolphins are captured when they are feeding”.
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“This closure was one of the main levers for the reduction in accidental catches, even if there may have been a conjunction of several mechanisms, because outside of the closure periods, we did not have levels very high mortality rates,” he adds.
Figures contradicted to BFMTV by David Le Quintrec, who points out that in 2024, “there were many more dolphin strandings compared to other years when the boats were at sea. These are verifiable figures on the website of Pelagis, we're not making this up.”
“We do not understand the figures that the minister throws around saying that catches have decreased by four, it is absolutely false,” he attacks again.
Search for alternative solutions
Jérôme Spitz says he is satisfied with “the support of the State to continue compensation”, with an envelope of 20 million euros also intended for fishmongers, he is especially impatient to “finally be able to develop large-scale experiments to find alternative solutions to closure, in particular through the testing of repellents”.
A little more than half of the 300 boats compensated are already or will soon be equipped with the famous pingers or acoustic beacons intended to ward off or warn dolphins of danger.
“We must now show scientifically that it works,” also declared Friday the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, whose objective is “the reopening of the Bay of Biscay by February 2027”.
“For the moment, we do not have solutions that have demonstrated widespread effectiveness,” nevertheless warns the co-director of Pelagis. “It is the combination of different solutions that will enable the sustainability of management measures.”
He also highlights the usefulness of cameras on board ships to “better understand the circumstances of accidental captures”. “A lot of animals drop out before arriving on the boats, which leads to discrepancies in the perception of the number of animals caught by professionals and which fishermen do not necessarily see.”
Insufficient compensation
For his part, David Le Quintrec says he is “disgusted” and denounces “policing.” Another reason for his ire: the too little compensation he will receive from the government. Furthermore, from this Wednesday, its crew is prohibited from boarding its boat, under penalty of sanctions.
Thursday January 16, the fisherman filed an appeal with the Council of State against the decree imposing these on-board cameras on around a hundred vessels.
