Europe Fights to Save Its Fish Stocks

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2007/feb/11/021103986.html

ADRA, Spain (AP) - The catch of the day brings up a squirming pandemonium of creatures from the deep: sea bream and red snapper, miniature lobsters, an electric ray packing 150 volts, a baby octopus watching with one unblinking eye.

But skipper Mariano Lopez, gazing at this mound of exuberance on his trawler's deck, is disappointed. Like many patches of the Mediterranean, this overworked fishing ground is not yielding the bounty it once did.

"There should be twice as much," Lopez says, shaking his head.

Fishermen were long seen as Europe's last true hunters, but the romance that comes with the struggle against nature has dwindled as fast as the once-bountiful fish. The European Union has desperately implemented fishing curbs and other measures to keep Mediterranean and Atlantic waters alive - policies fishermen complain are destroying their traditions and livelihoods.

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