Images provided by activist group Sea Shepherd show thousands of dead blue whiting fish floating on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of southwest France.
Sea Shepherd estimate around 100,000 dead fish were in the shoal.
Reacting to the “shocking” images, France’s Maritime Minister Annick Girardin tweeted on Friday that the French National Centre for Fishing Surveillance has launched an investigation.
Virginijus Sinkevicius, the EU’s Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, also announced an inquiry into the case, promising “to get exhaustive information and evidence” on what happened.
The fish were caught by the Lithuania-registered trawler, Margiris. According to the Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association, which represents the vessel, the fish were “involuntarily released into the sea” on Thursday due to a snag in the trawler’s net.
The association told said the “accident” was a “rare occurrence”, which was due to “the unexpectedly large size of the fish caught”.
Sea Shepherd questioned whether the release was an accident, and called for more policing of the actions of industrial trawlers.
