The coast guard of Dubai has reported finding thousands of dead fish in the emirate’s waters. The Fisherman’s Association (FA) thinks that banned fishing methods are behind the deaths.

The FA’s chairman, Mohammed Al Marri, said: “We have received information from the coast guard they have found thousands of dead fish in that area…these fish are considered among the best marine animals and we believe they have been subjected to banned fishing ways by some boats.”

He went on to say: “We sent a boat to verify the report and found many types of Tuna fish, which we call Al Sadda, have perished... the Ministry of Environment and the Dubai Municipality have launched an investigation into this problem.”

The FA believes special boats, which use new fishing techniques, are responsible. The dead fish could have caused great problems to both environment and tourism if they had washed up on the shore. It was only the recent bad weather and high winds, which washed them away.