The Daily Telegraph

Italy’s fishermen take revenge on dolphins eating at their livelihood

- By Nick Squires in Rome

THEY may be among the most appealing of marine mammals, but dolphins are being blamed by Italian fishermen for wrecking their livelihood­s by eating too many fish.

Fishermen in waters off Sicily say they have seen a drastic fall in their fish and squid catches and a few have even taken matters into their own hands, by shooting the protected dolphins with spear guns and rifles.

“The majority of fishermen don’t wish to harm the dolphins but it is not by chance that there are increasing numbers of animals washing up on the beaches having been shot with spear guns,” said Giovanni Basciano, the vice-president of a fishing cooperativ­e.

Last year, a 10ft bottlenose dolphin was washed up on southern Sardinia with a spear through its body – one of several such killings. Others have been killed with hunting rifles, and fishermen are the suspected culprits.

Fishermen in Sicily are protesting against the alleged depredatio­ns of striped and bottlenose dolphins, which they say have learnt how to follow their boats and raid their nets. They are calling for the situation to be declared a natural disaster so that they can claim compensati­on from the government.

“These days, fishermen hate dolphins as much as they hate politician­s,” said Giovanni Tumbiolo, a fisherman who is based on the idyllic island of Marettimo in the Egadi archipelag­o off western Sicily. “There’s been too much protection. It’s created a confrontat­ion between fishermen and dolphins, who are competing for the few fish that remain,” he told La Repubblica.

The fishermen claim that their catches are now so small that they are not able even to cover the cost of the petrol they use.

“No one wants to harm the dolphins, but this is an impossible situation. I used to bring home five kilos of fish. This morning I came back with five bream and a cod. The dolphins are intelligen­t – they follow the boats,” said Ignazio Spataro, a Sicilian fisherman.

Maurizio Puglisi, whose boat is based in Messina in eastern Sicily, said: “We’re not just losing out on fishing, the dolphins also damage our nets, which we then have to repair.”

The battle is particular­ly intense around the Aeolian Islands, a remote volcanic archipelag­o between Sicily and the Italian mainland, where fishing and tourism are the principal sources of income. “It’s a calamity,” said Giuseppe Spinella, vice-president of the local fishing consortium. “The situation is no longer sustainabl­e, every night there is a war for survival.”

Environmen­tal groups fiercely contest the notion that dolphins are to blame for the lack of fish. They say the crisis is a result of decades of bad management and rampant over-fishing.

“We’ve been studying the dolphins closely for more than 15 years and they have not increased in numbers,” Monica Blasi, a biologist based in the Aeolian Islands told The Daily Telegraph.

“There are fewer fish in the sea, a result of years of bad management. As a result, the dolphins have adapted and learned to feed closer to the nets.”

Ms Blasi believes the fishermen do deserve compensati­on, but there are other ways to manage the conflict. “One idea is to attach devices, known as pingers, to fishing nets and boats. They emit a frequency which repels the dolphins but not the fish,” she said.

The clash was raised in Italy’s parliament yesterday.

“It shouldn’t have to be a choice between the fishermen and the dolphins,” said Raffaele Ranucci, a centre-left Democratic Party senator. “We need to find solutions [that] combine respect for the environmen­t and marine wildlife with the needs of the fishermen.”

‘These days, fishermen hate dolphins as much as they hate politician­s. There’s been too much protection’

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 ??  ?? The fisherman of Sicily, right, want compensati­on for a natural disaster, claiming dolphins have learned how to follow their boats, left, and raid their nets
The fisherman of Sicily, right, want compensati­on for a natural disaster, claiming dolphins have learned how to follow their boats, left, and raid their nets

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