When sealife are netted for food, many unintended victims end up being thrown out as 'trash'. ------------------------------------------- Greenpeace brings 11,000 dead sea animals to Brandenburg Gate Tue Aug 17, 1:20 PM ET Add Science - AFP to My Yahoo! BERLIN (AFP) - Environmental watchdog Greenpeace spread 11,000 dead sea animals before Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to urge the creation of wildlife protection areas at the North and Baltic Seas. Greenpeace Photo Some 25 activists presented the dead sea urchins, mussels, crabs, baby plaice and rays on a 100-meter-long (328-foot-long) table at the German landmark under a banner reading "Life is not Garbage". The animals had been caught by a single fishing boat on a two-hour cruise of the North Sea and sorted out as "waste material", the group said in a statement. Greenpeace members on a separate ship, the "Esperanza", collected and documented the dead animals, which they said can make up 90 percent of a normal commercial catch. "The waste of life in the seas must stop," said Thomas Henningsen, a marine biologist with Greenpeace. "These animals died senselessly in the mesh of fishing nets." Iron chains hang in front of the openings of the nets, which are dragged along the ocean floor, Greenpeace said. Only large protection areas where fishing is suspended for long periods can allow marine wildlife to survive in their habitats, it added. The group would like to see 40 percent of the North and Baltic Seas protected from fishing, oil and gas exploration, sand and gravel collection and ship traffic. "Only with these comprehensive measures can the fish population recover and the long-term future of fishing be secured," it said. ---------------------------------------------------------- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1540&ncid=1540&e=4&u=/afp/20040817/sc_afp/germany_sea_environment_040817172034
