We are not designated marine mammal experts and will therefore not provide a specific assessment or recommendation regarding the sad beaching of the humpback whale "Timmy" (or "Hope or "Finn") in the Baltic Sea.
However, it is our duty to continuously highlight the massive consequences that certain human interventions have on the seas on our doorstep: every year, thousands of fish and marine mammals perish in fishing nets in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.
Mammals must surface regularly to breathe — if they become entangled in gillnets, they literally drown. Bottom trawler nets destroy the seabed with its fauna and flora, leaving behind biologically non-functional deserts. Ghost nets drift everywhere, are swallowed by fish, whales, seals, and water birds such as cormorants, leading to starvation despite a full stomach or blocking food intake. Dolly ropes and net fragments are misused as nesting material by water birds such as northern gannets, which leads to chick entanglement: this is the term used for the strangulation of the young after hatching in the tear-resistant thread material.
ElasmOcean therefore consistently demands a comprehensive ban on
bottom trawling and gillnet fishing — not only in marine protected areas, but throughout the entire Ausschließliche Wirtschaftszone (AWZ, English: EEZ) of Germany in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.
We cannot accept the repeatedly presented arguments regarding endangered jobs or "tradition". The impacts of environmental destruction affect all Europeans, meaning social solutions must be found for the affected jobs to ensure that we can continue to experience many of our "living traditions" in the future, rather than preserving them only in museums and memories.
