In a study conducted by the University of Haifa’s Department of Maritime Civilizations it is mentioned that commercial is seriously damaging the lives of marine neighbors. The study, supervised by Prof. Ehud Spanier and Dr. Dan Kerem, examined the the two top predators along the Mediterranean coast of Israel: the Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and bottom trawlers.
Record shows that commercial trawling in the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel targets codfish, red mullet and sole, three commercial and sought-after types of fish. The Department of Fisheries in Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture revealed that for many years the amount of fish from the sea floor looted by Israel’s commercial trawling is larger than the amount of fish that nature provides, indicating that the sea floor fish population dropped between the years 1949 and 2006.
The decline of such fishes in the sea necessarily causes direct harm to the dolphins because their diet might also include other types of fish. Dr. Scheinin, most of the dolphins were observed around the trawling boats: the chances of observing a school of dolphins near a trawler is ten times higher than in the open sea.
It si said that the trawler serves as a “feeding station” for the dolphins: there they are not able to feed from the more expensive loot caught in the nets, but they are able to enjoy schools of other types of fish that swim around the trawler. Dr. Scheinin explains that the problem is that this type of fishing endangers the dolphins. Eight dolphins die each year off the coast of Israel on average, and of those, four die after having been mistakenly caught in trawling nets.
