FISHERMEN'S FOES

Shannon News, 14 September 1926, Page 3

FISHERMEN'S FOES

DANGERS OF SEA MONSTERS. Although the trawler dragging Its purse-shaped net across the sea-bot-tom may lose tackle by striking an old wreck or anchor, it is not troubled by such creature? as whales and sharks, but drift-net fishermen suffer heavv losses at the hand—or shall we say fins?—of sea monsters. Sharks are their worst enemies, but a porpoise will play havoc with nets. The "sea-pig" is a powerful brute arid charges blindly when it happens to strike a net. A whale of course pimply smashes up everything, but whales rarely get entangled" in nets. The herring whale watts when the nets are being houled and helps itself to fish that manage to escape. Some years ago a bottle-nosed whale got into a shrimp net on the K* sex coast and. though it weighed nearly a ton. was captured and killed. A sturgeon weighing 525 pounds, taken in the "North Sea, did damage | to the extent of £l5O to nets before I it was got aboard.