Last week I wrote about the dumping of used gillnets by French and Spanish boats* in Scottish waters. My contact has sent me more photos of dumped nets landed by local trawlers. I'll spare you the very distressing shots of seals and porpoises caught in them, but brace yourselves:
This ghost net has trapped hundreds of large fish, which would have died slowly as they were rolled over the seafloor. Gillnetting is extremely light and fine, so this probably amounts to several miles of net. 
This one has picked up some large brown crabs, which are crucial to thriving ecosystems.
This isn't a net, but a longline, that also appears to have been dumped at sea. It has trapped a gannet.
Here's a mass of dumped ropes and netting, hauled up by a trawler.
There are many more, but you get the idea. So the question is, what is @scotgov going to do about it? So far: nothing.
*How do we know these come from French and Spanish boats? Because they're the only ones in Scottish waters engaged in major gillnetting and longlining.
*How do we know these come from French and Spanish boats? Because they're the only ones in Scottish waters engaged in major gillnetting and longlining.
Here's the article I wrote about it: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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