MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bingham blasts Falkland's fishery policy

Marine biologist Mike Bingham claims that in 1982 the Penguin population in the Falkland Islands was six million, however twenty years later and as a direct consequence of the indiscriminate fisheries policy of the Islands government, only 600,000 are left.

La Prensa Austral reports that Mike Bingham attributed "the 100,000 dead penguins that appeared along the Falklands coast line last May to insufficient food because of the massive and indiscriminate fisheries exploitation protected by the government of the British possession".

According to the article in the Punta Arenas daily, Bingham states that British authorities do not respect the conservation measures agreed by different world organizations and conventions that study the behaviour of penguins, which demand that fishing operations must concentrate 45 kilometres away from the coastal habitat of penguins.

"It's the only place (Falklands) in the world where fishing occurs just next to penguin colonies", stressed Dr. Bingham, besides the fact that hundreds of vessels catch mainly squid, "penguin's favourite food". Further on La Prensa Austral indicates that Dr. Bingham has been doing penguin research in the Falklands for nine years, including three in Magadalena island in Chile, where the penguin population keeps growing and they "are very healthy".

This in spite of the fact that Chile is not a rich country, while in the Falklands fisheries represent 60 million US dollars in revenue, little or nothing is done to protect the local penguin population and marine species.