Blood sports

Fines of more than 37 million Turkish Liras ($2.1 million) were given during inspections for illegal fishing, while 480 tons of fishery products and 169 ships without fishing licenses were confiscated in 2022, the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry has announced.

The ministry stated that 199,702 inspections were carried out against illegal fishing last year.

Far from Dubai's gleaming skyscrapers and renowned camel races, a bullfight is under way in the emirate of Fujairah, where the tradition continues unbeknown to most in the United Arab Emirates.

"Look at them fight!" a commentator shouts into a microphone as the first bovine battle of the day kicks off in the village of Al-Qurayyah.

The general spring fishing ban began on Friday in Romania's natural habitats, with the fishing closure next imposed in border waters - the Danube River section shared with Bulgaria and the waters that define the border with Ukraine, the Musura Gulf included - as of April 24, according to the Prohibition Order issued by the Ministries of Environment and of Agriculture, respectively.

The seabed of the Bosphorus is full of sinkers that have fallen off from fishing rods, causing massive risk to human lives and the ecosystem, a marine biologist has warned.

"Those sinkers are made of lead that can dissolve in time in salty waters," Gülşen Altuğ from Istanbul University told Demirören News Agency on March 16.

Global warming has become one of the grave concerns affecting the marine life migration patterns, especially in the Black Sea, where fishes have been observed to have changed their migration routes due to rising water temperatures, according to an expert.

A man was fined 105,400 Turkish liras ($14,300) for organizing cockfighting in the southeastern Şanlıurfa province.

Police raided an address in the Fırat neighborhood and found 17 roosters bred for fighting, and tools for sharpening their beaks and claws.

The organizer identified by his initials U.T., was fined separately for each rooster.

Fishermen using cast nets in the depths of the Bosphorus Strait and close to its shores on big fishing boats are threatening marine wildlife, experts have warned.

The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry permits industrial fishing at 24 meters of depth offshore and in seas, but fishermen have been throwing nets from their large fishing boats close to the banks of the Bosphorus Strait.

The police have busted another cockfight amid the coronavirus pandemic, this one in the northwestern province of Bursa's Yıldırım district.
Police teams raided the roof of an apartment in Demetevler neighborhood and detained 47 people, six of whom were gamecock owners and the remaining 41 were spectators.

The Hellenic Initiative, a group founded by entrepreneurs of the Greek diaspora, has donated $20,000 to Enaleia, a school teaching the merits of sustainable fishing to Greek fishermen.

Sofia. The press office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry has announced changes in Minister Rumen Porodzanov's order concerning restrictions in group hunting of wild boar.