Long cold spell is to blame for lack of shellfish
Tuesday 16th June 2009, 2:30PM BST.
GUERNSEY fisherman are struggling to make a living after a reduction in crab stocks.
It is thought that this year’s cold spell, which lasted longer than in previous years, might have something to do with the poor amount of shellfish being caught.
Potter Robert Le Noury, who fishes off the west coast of the island, said he was putting down the same amount of pots but was struggling to find any crab.
‘This is the slack time of year, but it seems to have dragged on.
‘It’s worrying whether I will be able to catch them or not and whether the season will be a wipe-out.
‘I’m just not seeing soft crab [whose shells have yet to harden] in the pots,’ he said.
Mr Le Noury, who fishes every day, said he was only bringing in about 10 or 20 crabs, instead of the normal binful – 60 to 80 crabs.
‘I’ve never seen it like this. Every year it is different, but it’s been dead for months and I don’t know what the reason is.
‘It is affecting my salary.
‘I fish on my own but if I did have a crew I don’t know how I would be able to pay them,’ he said.
- To read Guernsey Press stories in full click here for subscription details. Individual editions are now available online.
Island Life
All about Guernsey
Ambassador of the Year 2011
History & Heritage
Visitor Information
Guernsey's government
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
Useful Links
Is it just me who thinks that the fact that there is no shell fish left is because the sea has been over fished for decades??
Report abuse
Andy. I also think there has been overfishing, not only crabs but all other things such as scallops, lobsters, fish. There should be a ban on all fishing during their breeding season.
Report abuse
Or is it because of all the raw sewage pumped into the sea here?
Report abuse
Same old story everywhere – the sea cannot sustain the volumes of fish being removed.
Crab is the story today, bass are another species being hammered locally. Particularly during the winter breeding season at the Boue Blondel off the west coast.
Around 50tonnes of egg laden / breeding fish have been taken over the last 5 years from one mark.
Fast forward 4 or 5 years and people will be wondering why bass are hard to find.
An enforced annual closed season lasting Dec to March at that known breeding site would ensure the species is not fished at a vulnerable time and sustain the commercial fisheries for the rest of the year.
The fishing industry (supported by Guernsey Sea Fisheries) need to act responsibly to ensure a lasting supply, not kill the very source of their income and then complain its all gone.
Other countries do this (US, Ireland etc) – why can’t we?
Report abuse
You only have to look at the undersize shell fish on sale in our local supermarkets to know that even if you did put a ban in place it is unlikely to be inforced by Sea Fisheries
Report abuse
Sorry, I should have said 50tonnes of breeding fish are taken every year by local boats.
Shooting themselves in the foot…
Report abuse
theresa
where are you finding this undersize shell fish?
have you measured it? also it`s illegal to land undersize fish so i doubt your statement is accurate but if it is then you should report it.
Report abuse
Mr Le Nourey fishes everyday and normally gets 60-80 crabs?
That’s cicra 29,000 crabs then just from him alone. Is anyone really surprised there are none left?
Report abuse
I can’t understand why the Boue Blondel mark is allowed to be fished at all!
I’d rather have healthy Bass stocks all year round rather than a winter glut at a time when the fish should be allowed to breed and stocks recover.
Guernsey could earn some serious “green” credentials here for promoting a sustainable fishery or, we could do nothing & watch the stocks dwindle like they have around the UK.
Report abuse
bcb
I’ll give you an example, I was at Admiral Park Checkers last friday and saw a packaged cooked lobster with weight of 12oz,now I know I did not measure it (I dont take a lobster measure with me shopping) but the non-professional potters I know would throw it back if it was under 20 oz. So I would say it was undersized.
Whenever I go shopping I like to look at the fish section and sometimes I cant help but think…that fish or that lobster looks undersize.
I dont report it to Sea Fisheries as I have no confidence in them, they dont stop the pair-trawlers stripping the sea of bass when they are spawning off Cobo, what are a few undersized fish to them?
Report abuse
Theresa
With respect youv`e changed your tune a bit there.
first you say there under size but now they only appear to be ? it may be under size to you but that doesn`t actually mean anything(sorry)it either is or it isn`t.
i can`t understand why they are throwing back a 19oz lobster as that is well over the size limit,
i just dont believe they are selling under size fish as they would get done for it, and why would they want to take a risk like that.
Report abuse
As well as banning crabbing and fishing during their breeding season, how about banning taking all female crabs and lobsters, this is in place in Queensland Aust. And most fishermen adhere to this. It really is time to conserve and make every effort to curb over fishing worldwide.
Report abuse
My goodness!! A disaster not attributed to Global warming or cigarette smoke. What will the PC brigade make of it?
Report abuse
Pretty obvious that over fishing has been going on. 60-80 a day of crabs by one fisherman, multiply that by how many… and then gripe you are not pulling many crabs now.
Sorry but it is not rocket science, a bit like there are so few ormers now, gone are the days of sack loads full.
You can not reap that much fish and not expect to be robbing your own future.
I often wonder where local crab picking establishments get their stock from, I gather some 200 crabs a day are picked at one place.
Report abuse
Overfishing in Local waters? surely not..!Fits with the many other shameful enviromental policies that the Guernsey states & the people turn a blind eye to. http://www.sas.org.uk/pr/2006/guernsey_sewagecount.htmlwaters!
Report abuse
Guernsey Sea Fisheries are always going to have to balance the short term needs of local fishermen to maximise their catches against the long term need to preserve and enhance fish stocks.
Our fishermen are not stupid, they know that fish stocks have to be preserved but with rising fuel costs, wage bills, export costs etc. the are under relentless pressure to catch more and more fish.
On top of this there is an ever increasing demand for fish from a hungry world – and the technology that fishermen have at their disposal these days is just too effective. The Spanish in particular have already decimated their own fish stocks and are now wiping out stocks elsewhere.
The balance between fishermen’s needs and sustaining global fish stocks has clearly now swung in favour of the fishermen and we need to redress this imbalance urgently.
There is a lot we can do – for example …
1) Dramatically extend our marine conservation areas – I understand this leads to an ‘overspill’ which significantly increases in fish stocks outside of the conservation zone.
2) Ban fishing for specific species during their breeding season. Let the spider crabs lay their eggs and the bass spawn at Boue Blondel BEFORE we catch them. It doesn’t take a genuis to work that one out.
3) Put Leopardess to sea more often. We need to police our fishing territory far more vigorously. I too have seen those pair trawlers off Cobo and I am sure they are fishing within our limits. There is no point in conserving fish stocks if we let foreign industrial fishing fleets hoover them up. (Won’t be long before the dead dolphins start washing ashore again).
4) Lets have some imaginative new ideas how to tackle this problem. For instance – how about training and paying some of our fishermen to carry out fisheries protection duties in return for less days fishing – they catch less while seeing off some of those illegal foreign boats.
5) Challenge EU/UK fishing policies where they are wrong – and ignore them if we have to. Lets not see Guernsey fisherman throwing by-catch back in the sea because some prat in a suit in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
6) Above all implement a fisheries policy which involves the fishermen rather than dictating to them. We ALL want to preserve our fish stocks – and our commercial fishermen would probably like nothing more than to help design a sustainability policy. Without involvement there is no commitment.
Come on States of Guernsey, lets see some action. Time is running out.
Report abuse
CD
I agree with almost every point on your post but won’t fall out with you on the detail ;-)
The fishing industry has changed over the past 30 years or so from what would have been a sustainable industry with lots of boats supplying local needs to what is far less boats with more effective methods of catching and a larger export market. One of the insanities of how the whole of the fishing industry has changed is that on any day you might see a pallet load of bass flying off to the UK market and coming into the island an aircraft with Greek farmed bass onboard.
It will be a little known fact to many contributors here that Guernsey, including the Channel Islands and especially Alderney holds a large proportion of the British shore caught fishing records.
It may come as another surprise that the value of recreational angling (probably including fresh water) to the UK and European economy is phenomenal. Various links worth reading are here:
http://www.sacn.org.uk/Articles/Economics_of_Recreational_Sea_Angling.html
With the expansion of water activity and sports that we have recently seen; surfing, snorkelling, kayaking, dinghy sailing, diving and scientific interests, I am of the belief that all of these groups should have far more input into how we utilise the sea and its resources.
If I were the King of Guernsey I would ban all bay netting, ensure Boue Blondel was only available to line caught bass and box limits per boat, put a closed season on certain fish, rethink the size limits, sink a few old boats around our shores (making artificial reefs for fish and diver interest) , promote the Islands as a place to come shore fishing (trust me these anoraks spend money and I’m one of them) and look at, like Richard Lord proposed, putting embargos on certain areas of sea to ensure that the sea can rejuvenate itself.
When discussing ideas in the past the mistake has been anglers taking almost fanatical positions, environmentalists not being any different and the commercials thinking they own the sea. If the stakeholders take the fanaticism out of their arguments we could improve the lot of all sea users.
Report abuse
Neil – absolutely agree that recreational angling should be represented when it comes to implementing a sustainable fisheries policy.
Anglers know as well as anybody how much fish stocks have delined in recent years.
I just wish somebody would start implementing some sort of effective fisheries protection policy now while we still have fish.
Report abuse
CD
We need to be careful not to point out the local commercials as some kind of bogey man. The reality is that the commercials do what they do and that is go fishing. If, and that’s a big if, the small local feet is really impacting on our stocks I would be extremely surprised. Certainly large headline catches by two local pair trawlers a couple of years ago, the old French Marks etc don’t make for pretty reading, as neither do the preponderance of bay netting. But, in the main I would be very surprised if the local fleet have had a huge impact on our stocks. Most of our prime fish are coming up from elsewhere and Guernsey, generally, seems to be a bit of a transit point for a long Caribou like march elsewhere.
The main culprits are in fact the English and French ships that have decimated our West Coast with their dredging. Cutting great swathes of disturbed ground, flattening reefs and killing anything that can’t get out of its way; unfortunately the genie was let out the bottle a couple of years ago when we lost our 3- 12mile control and all the damage has been done since then.
Boue Blondel, as far as I’m aware, is relatively safe from net based commercials as there is a no net zone put in by Sea Fisheries. I completely understand how anglers feel about targeting spawning bass but, for what its worth, what’s taken on rod and line is a pin prick to the mass of millions of fish that turn up there; the real damage is done on the way up from Biscay and Ushant and forward on to Holland.
One of the arguments anglers use against Boue Blondel is spawning fish. That’s a difficult one for most anglers as there will be few summer time anglers that aren’t catching pregnant females be that mackerel (low value) to Turbot (high value). It’s a tough old argument as no one is squeaky clean on this.
As for the decline in fish stocks there is evidence that things are on the change. Bass haven’t declined – 20 years ago you’d be lucky to catch one off the shore, at the moment they are as common as muck. Plaice have certainly declined but unlikely from over fishing, they just seemed to have disappeared from the shore line, possibly moving to colder waters? Add to this a whole rake of new species the reality is that with our apparent warming seas the sea environment is changing.
Having said all of that, none of the above is an excuse not to keep an eye on our own impact on our fish stocks and sea environment. As I said in a previous post there is still a massive opportunity for all stakeholders to get together, leaving the guns at the door, and take a holistic approach to our sea environment. Thereafter promoting our beautiful Islands and its people as a responsible community making every effort to either fire fight that which we have little control over, educate the general population as to the importance of the sea and thereafter promote our sea product to a younger more environmental conscious market.
Insurmountable? Nothing is.
Report abuse
Good reply Neil and I agree with what you are saying. You raise interesting points about the migration of fish stocks and changing sea temperatures
I do think though that we need to work on a more robust sustainability policy for our own waters and we need to start now.
Regardless of whether the French and English are scooping up the fish outside of our waters, if we can do something to ease the pressure on those stocks (albeit temporarily) then I think we should.
Report abuse
You said: I do think though that we need to work on a more robust sustainability policy for our own waters and we need to start now.”
I agree. But the world works around money. If you can do that while showing the benefits to the island then you are on to a winner. Shouting at the commercials (not suggesting that you do) just won’t work. Everyone has to give a bit.
Using an reasonably bad example might be Africa. No point telling tribesmen to stop shooting rhinos unless you educate them that they can turn their hunting skills into guide skills taking well off tourists around in the back of landrovers.
The models and examples are all out there. Just down to us now.
Regards
Report abuse