Tag: oceans

Greenpeace | Supertrawlers exposed

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A recent Guardian article quoted campaigners saying that so-called supertrawlers spent almost 3,000 hours fishing in UK Marine Protected Areas in 2019, making “a mockery of the word ‘protected’.” The article was based on data from Greenpeace to show that trawlers over 100 metres spent 2,963 hours – the equivalent of more than 123 days – fishing in UK MPAs in 2019. While banning all supertrawlers full stop would be preferable, Greenpeace have launched a petition calling on the government to ban supertrawlers in UK Marine Protected Areas.

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Exploring Animal Culture

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Last week we published a podcast with Philippa Brakes on Animal Culture and Conservation’. Philippa is a Research Fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation, and in the text to promote the interview we quoted from two articles that she had co-written on how animal culture needed to be taken into account when considering their conservation. These are huge ideas, and there is no doubt at all that integrating an appreciation of how important animal culture is to wildlife is an angle well worth exploring.

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Podcast: Checking in with Margaux Dodds, Marine Connection

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Here at The War on Wildlife Project we were thinking that as us campaigners, conservationists, and activists can’t get out to meet and see each other now, how about creating something to bring the conservation community together – everyone from individuals to grassroots organisations to larger charities – something that reminds us all that we’re still out there, still working, but that also shows the human side of things during this COVID-19 crisis. We could think of them as ‘check-ins’ – as in ‘checking-in to make sure we’re all okay’.

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Podcast: Philippa Brakes | Animal Culture and Conservation

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While researching for a series of podcasts looking at how the Covid-19 pandemic was impacting conservation Charlie Moores was put in touch with Phillipa Brakes, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Philippa and Charlie had spoken before and at the time had prepped a podcast on animal sentience which they’d not been able to record. Charlie had planned to pick up on the subject again – but read a relatively short paper that Philippa had co-written on how animal culture needed to be taken into account when considering their conservation, which included striking sentences such as: “most profoundly, culture can play a causal role in establishing and maintaining distinct evolutionary trajectories”. Discuss, indeed!

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Podcast: Checking in with Erich Hoyt, Research Fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation

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Here at The War on Wildlife Project we were thinking that as us campaigners, conservationists, and activists can’t get out to meet and see each other now, how about creating something to bring the conservation community together – everyone from individuals to grassroots organisations to larger charities – something that reminds us all that we’re still out there, still working, but that also shows the human side of things during this COVID-19 crisis. We could think of them as ‘check-ins’ – as in ‘checking-in to make sure we’re all okay’.

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Podcast: Ghost Gear | World Animal Protection

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Each year at least 640,000 tonnes of ‘ghost gear‘ — abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear — is added to the rubbish accumulating in our oceans. Estimated to represent 10% of all marine debris, ghost gear mutilates and kills millions of marine animals every year, including endangered whales, seals, and turtles, and compared with all other forms of human-caused marine debris it is four times more likely to impact marine life through entanglement than all other forms of marine debris combined. Charlie Moores met with Peter Kemple Hardy, Campaigns Manager at the charity World Animal Protection, to discuss the problems of ‘ghost gear’ and the solutions being put in place to tackle a threat that could spell catastrophe for marine ecosystems.

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