Three NGOs say they have sued the French authorities before the Council of State for failing to monitor and protect seabirds from unselective fishing activities – at a time when several species are on the brink of extinction.
NGOs ClientEarth, Sea Shepherd France and Défense des Milieux Aquatiques say they have filed a complaint before France’s highest administrative court – Conseil d’Etat – demanding that existing EU laws on sustainable fishing and biodiversity protection are properly enforced.
A study published in 2024 by the journal Animal Conservation, published by the Zoological Society of London, listed the ten countries with the highest observed estimates of annual seabird bycatch.
France topped the list with 34,603, followed by Poland (21,300), Portugal (19,775), Iceland (18,996), Spain (18,311), Sweden (17,743) Germany (17,551), Norway (16,413), the UK (8592) and Denmark (3249).
The NGOs say that tens of thousands of seabirds are killed off the French coast after they become hooked or entangled in fishing gear - caught as bycatch during fisheries targeting species such as hake, sea bass and tuna.
Species most affected include the Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus), the Northern gannet (Morus bassanus) and the common guillemot (Uria aalge), which are now classified as critically endangered, near threatened and endangered according to the IUCN Red List, the NGOs state.
The NGOs are calling on France, which oversees the world’s second-largest exclusive economic zone, to “urgently put in place effective monitoring systems, robust mitigation measures, and concrete plans to reduce pressure on threatened seabirds and increase selectivity.
The complaint complements an infringement procedure already opened by the European Commission against France for similar failings, they state.
The NGOs quote Ludovic (a pseudonym), who explains his experience as a fisherman dealing with seabird bycatch.
Out of conviction, he has only ever used hook-and-line fishing, they note.
“At the very beginning of my fishing career, I encountered two episodes of extremely high numbers of bird captures (more than 50 birds in a single haul—Northern gannets, gulls and shearwaters), which sickened me and forced me to act,”he is quoted as saying.
“When I cast my baited lines after sunrise, all the birds realized I was throwing sardines into the water and tried to grab them. Bird catches become inevitable. It was a real massacre, and I was disgusted,”he says.
Ludovic says he changed his fishing hours, and had to fine-tune his settings to ensure all his hooks were deployed deeper into the water, to completely eliminate seabird captures, particularly shearwaters.
“Gillnets work without bait but pose a constant threat to diving seabirds.The best way to avoid bycatch is to fish at night and hauling them back before sunrise — that is, quite quickly,”he explains
“This method avoids all bird captures and ensures that the flesh of the fish is intact and not attacked by predators such as cuttlefish. It makes it possible to sell all the catch, including more delicate species,”he says.
“Conversely, leaving nets in the water for longer results in major losses of fish (degraded flesh) and numerous bird captures… every day. Paradoxically, this counterproductive practice has become the norm,”he is quoted as saying.
