Foreign trawlers are electrocuting fish in one of Britain’s most important marine reserves and threatening other marine life, an investigation has found.
Dutch “pulse fishing” vessels, which tow electrodes that fire electricity into the seabed to force fish out of the mud, have been fishing in the Dogger Bank special area of conservation (SAC).
The pulses cause fish to spasm and spring up into nets but they can also break the spines of big cod. British fishermen say that the sea is a graveyard after a visit by the overseas boats.
In January the European parliament voted to ban pulse fishing but the European Commission says that it needs to continue to study its impact.
In 2011 the government announced that Dogger Bank, a sandbank