Velvet strand,14th may

[spindlefist]

I was out walkin velvet strand portmarnock the other day and it was strewn with razor/starfish and urchins!! I mean the length of it! walked from one end to the other, and there were tidal bands of empty razors and dead starfish....
There must be some well fed fish swimmin about out there at the moment =o)
Presume it was the stormy weather along there during the early week... or could it have been trawler damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAFg5KN_Sx4

that is a rough clip of just a few feet of the starfish, there were thousands of them!!

[captain AHAB]

thats the razor boats man,they dump all broken and small razors overboard(usually 50-80% of total catch)and leave the seabed like a ploughed field.

[spindlefist]

really? that's obscene!! i mean, that was miles and miles of shells and starfish!!

[captain AHAB]

a couple of years ago they had to stop dredging off that area due to complaints to fingal co.co of the horrendous stench of rotting flesh throughout the warm summer months.what you saw is probably only a fraction of whats actually on the sea bed man,these boats have been working this area constantly for years now and all for about €3.50 per kilo(probably about €1/kilo when discard is taken into account).when they dredge an area they render it devoid of any life and i firmly believe that this is one of the main reasons for the lack of fish up and down the n/e coast.

[spindlefist]

that is shocking. Some people are just scum.

[wayne riley]

as ahab has said they are at it years now, at times you can see loads of boats going up and down the shore line

[keith]

Yep go to laytown or Gormanstown and you'll see the boats within 500mtrs of the shore

[steveoel]

Whats the legal stand point of this behaviour??
Are they breaking the law?
Can they be reported if seen engaged in this activity??

Its disgusting!!

[captain AHAB]

unfortunetly theyre not breaking any laws and operate with no limits or quotas imposed on them,what absolutely drives me crazy is the fact that most of these a**eholes were given their bi-valve fishing licenses for free(only a few years ago) in order to get them in the system.

[Al]

Yep go to laytown or Gormanstown and you'll see the boats within 500mtrs of the shore

Yeah myself and Shamoo saw 3 of them there about two months back

[The Austrian]

Yep go to laytown or Gormanstown and you'll see the boats within 500mtrs of the shore

Yeah myself and Shamoo saw 3 of them there about two months back

Ahh, not to worry , there is still a good chance they might dig up the odd sea mine , a few years ago a Kilkeel trawler landed back with a mine in its nets - the ATO's saw to it - but some younglad who worked on the ship had admitted that he had "hit and thumped at it" when it first came aboard. "Booom" springs to mind