Shelly Beach Ski boat club sent us this e-mail a must read Hi Members As most of you are aware by now that Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is planning to implement an MPA (Marine Protected Area) on our section of coast (Greater Shelly Beach/Protea Banks Area) within the near future so I thought this would be the right time and platform to share this post. Over the past few years we have been seeing or hear reports about sightings of Longliners/Trawlers vacating our reef area in the early hours of the morning heading straight out to sea. Most of us have seen them and even found Longline buoys and other paraphernalia on Protea Banks.We now have even further proof. A few days ago Trevor Mosely, a Shelly Beach member was fishing with his father Richard on their boat Hooker when they found this strange device floating on the Protea. See pictures below. This UFO looking object is actually very sophisticated and is commonly know as a Tuna Tracking Device. Basically its a self powered GPS tracking unit that sends back data to the fishing vessel from which it was deployed. This includes info such as water temperature, current, depth and even has a built in sounder that can tell the amount of fish moving under it. Basically these tuna hunting vessels deploy hundreds of these devices into known fishing hot spots. I understand that they call it curtaining. Each device will have some form of netting or shade cloth etc suspended below. Essentially it becomes a mobile FAD (Fish Aggregating Device). These vessels then keep tabs of these devices and move in and NET the entire lot once they have concluded that there are sufficient fish holding around/under the device. I have done some research on the vessel that this particular Tuna Tracking Device comes from. Its belongs to a Spanish tuna fishing ship called the ALAKRANA. This 104 m, 3716 ton ship was last located fishing off the Seychelles by Marine Traffic on the 24/11/2014 and was heading south. Now here is my question to all of you. Dont you think its ironic that this device suddenly appeared on one of the most prolific tuna areas on the Eastern seaboard of SA? Some skeptics will probably imply that it might have merely drifted onto Protea Banks, maybe so, but really! I dont believe that at all and is to coincidental if you ask me. NOW here is my major point. If our authorities cannot police and protect our seas/reefs from this kind of fishing then why do they continue to attack the recreational sector with smaller bag limits and implementation of MPAs along our coast. SURELY they should be focusing on protecting our stocks from international squander and pillaging! But no, they now want to protect our oceans from the recreational rod and reel fisherman whom they perceive as the greatest threat! This is absolutely ludicrous! Maybe these MPAs are a smoke screen to allow the pillaging to continue unabated as certain government sectors line their pockets with profits from fishing rights and quotas sold to the highest international bidder! We need to stand together as a community of ocean users and demand the scientific facts and data from KZN Wildlife that shows how us fisherman are causing most of the damage and degradation to our reefs and ocean system. If this MPA is implemented our town will die as we have no industry and rely purely on tourism derived from ocean users. Please share as we need to unite on this matter as it ultimately effects us all............. -- Regards Kurt Rutter
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:07:37 +0000
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