The European Union could block Iceland's fishing boats from unloading mackerel in European ports unless a fishing row is resolved, a source close to the European Commission said Tuesday.

EU Maritime Affairs Commissioner Maria Damanaki told the 27-nation bloc's fisheries ministers she wanted to invoke the European Economic Area agreement to bar Iceland from unloading the fish in EU ports, the source said.

Damanaki has instructed her services to start working on an "ad hoc" regulation that would prohibit landings of fish stocks on a raw or processed form when an international sharing arrangement has not been found.

Negotiations between Iceland, Norway and the European Union failed this year.

Iceland, which has applied to join the EU, unilaterally raiseed its mackerel catch quota to 130,000 tonnes this year compared to 2,000 tonnes in previous years, a move that angered Brussels.

The nordic island condemned a decision by the EU and Norway to give themselves a quota of nearly 584,000 tonnes for 2011 in the absence of an agreement.

Iceland's negotiator, Tomas Heidar, has warned that this represented more than 90 percent of the allowable catch recommended by scientists.

"If the EU and Norway do not reconsider their decision, they will bear the responsibility of overfishing from the stock next year," he said in a statement.

earlier related report
More cold-stunned sea turtles rescued
Norfolk, Va. (UPI) Dec 12, 2010 - Volunteers in Virginia and North Carolina say they've been busy rescuing cold-affected sea turtles and finding them temporary homes in aquariums.

A sudden onset of freezing temperatures has caught many of the creatures too far north and left them lethargic and unable to move.

"I think the temperature's just dropped so quickly that they haven't gotten out yet," Christina Trapani of the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center told the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot. "They should be going somewhere warm."

Cold weather stuns some turtles every year, said Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation at the aquarium, but the number of turtles this year is "a little unusual."

"We're very close to having a full house," Swingle said. "By the end of the weekend, we're going to be full."

On Friday 11 turtles, including Kemp's ridleys, green turtles and loggerhead turtles, were taken in by the aquarium.

Six had been transferred from facilities in New England, and the rest were found in Hampton Roads. Two more arrived from North Carolina on Saturday, aquarium workers said.

The Network for Endangered Sea Turtles in Kitty Hawk, N.C., operates a rehabilitation center for cold-stunned and injured turtles at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.

Once there, the turtles are gradually warmed up.

"You can't just stick them next to a heater and warm them up fast," NEST President Karen Fitzgerald said. "You have to do it slowly."

Last winter, nearly 70 cold-stunned turtles, a record number, were rescued by NEST volunteers, Fitzgerald said.

It was too soon to compare this year's numbers to last year's, the Virginian-Pilot said.