Conserving flora and fauna
Scapêche comes into close contact with numerous other species during its fishing expeditions and respects this ecosystem by adopting the appropriate measures.

Here is an example of flora and fauna conservation for Patagonian toothfish fishing.


The birds used to dive onto the hooks as soon as the line was shot out, to feed on the bait. Measures were therefore taken, such as shooting the lines out at night and hauling the lines in during the day.
In this way, the fishing crews and companies were able to considerably reduce bird mortality in a few years, so that today it is in in the order of about a hundred individuals taken per year, which means the number of birds caught was reduced by 3,000% between 2004 and 2010.

  • Other measures have been put in place to protect fauna
These measures include:
- Keeping factory discharge and inorganic waste on-board during fishing operations,
-Closing the Kerguelen zone to fishing between February and March, during the white-chinned petrel (protected species) breeding season,
- Compliance with the maximum legal catch size,
-the requirement to land fish on Réunion. Each catch is inspected by an independent expert to officially validate fishing declarations.
-Electronic catch documentation scheme "E-CDS" certificates issued by the FSAL and CCAMLR to monitor the sale of fish products.

  • The fight against illegal fishing has been intensified
This is supplemented by surveillance of the fishery by satellite monitoring, naval patrols and the patrol boat Osiris. This boat is operated and co-financed by the professionals including Scapêche-COMATA and the authorities.

The balance between the authorities of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, scientific analysis by the National Natural History Museum and the experience of professionals is the corner stone of responsible and sustainable Patagonian toothfish fishing.