Fishing Issues in the North Sea

On the BBC tonight. This is “Geography in your face” Around 1m tonnes of fish are dumped back in the North Sea every year - much of it because catches exceed EU fishing quotas. EU rules and regulations mean that as much as half of the fish they work so hard to catch is thrown dead, back into the water. "Quotas" limit not the amount of fish that's being caught, but the amount that is landed.
As a result, an astonishing amount of fish is being wasted because it is too big, or too small or the skipper is over quota for that particular species.
The quota system was introduced by the EU to protect threatened fish supplies. But what no-one expected was that it would result in so much waste. Read more and watch a video of this terrible situation here. More great stuff from the BBC for Geography!