The commercial fishing industry removes hundreds of thousands of tons of fish every year.  Throughout the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s various fishery industries collapsed as a direct result of overfishing the resource.  Today regulations and what is known as Total Allowable Catch (TAC) has been introduced in order to manage harvesting pressure and aid the recovery of commercially targeted fish stocks.

Various forms of commercial fishing exist along the South African coastline.  However in this article we will be focusing on the Demersal Fishery, which targets bottom fish in deep waters eg. Hake, the Pelagic Fishery, which targets surface feeding fish eg. sardines (pilchards) and ski-boat angling with handline or rod and reel, which mainly target reef fish, yellowtail, kob and snoek.

The Demersal Fishery

The Demersal Fishery is South Africa’s most valuable fishing industry.  The main fish targeted are deep and shallow-water hake.  Other species targeted include sole, horse mackerel and kingklip.  Demersal fishing makes use of a large net which is dragged across the ocean floor with weighted rollers.

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This form of fishing is not very specific, resulting in a very high amount of unwanted catch known as by-catch, including sharks, rays, snoek, ribbonfish (buttersnoek), monkfish, panga, carpenter, kob, gurnards and angelfish.  The weighted rollers on the nets destroy ocean floor habitats severely.   Longlining has recently become more popular as a form of demersal fishing.  It involves thousands of baited hooks, each hanging from a mainline that is weighted and released behind the boat.  This form of commercial fishing has had devastating effects on marine ecosystems.  Many seabird populations have become threatened or endangered as a result of longlining. As the longline baits are released albatrosses, terns, petrels and gannets dive for the baited hooks, many get hooked and as the weights sink the birds are drowned.  By-catch rates are very high, with many unwanted sharks, fish and turtles being hooked in the process.

 

The Pelagic Fishery

The Pelagic Fishery is South Africa’s second most valuable fishing industry.  The main fish targeted are sardines (pilchards), anchovies and the Cape round herring which are surface feeding fish.  Fishing vessels locate large shoals of fish, and surround the fish with a purse-seine like net.  The net is brought together underneath the fish, forcing the fish into a tight ball near the surface.  A suction pipe is then lowered and the fish are sucked up into the holding of the fishing vessel.

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This form of fishing is relatively specific, and by-catch is limited.  Sardines and anchovies are short lived species and population sizes differ from year to year, depending on environmental factors.  This has resulted in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) to differ every year.  Hydro-acoustic surveys, a method using echo sound location, is used to determine the population size of the sardine, anchovy and Cape round herring for that season.  The surveys are carried out twice a year by Marine and Coastal Management (MCM), and are vital in determining the TAC for that season.

Ski-Boat  Angling

The main fish targeted by this industry are various reef fish, yellowtail, kob and snoek.  This industry peaked in the 1960’s with approximately 20 000 tons of fish being harvested.  From then on it has steadily been declining.  Today approximately 13 000 tons are harvested legally, however a large illegal industry within this fishery exists.  Slow growing reef fish such as red steenbras and red stumpnose are often targeted and sold illegally to restaurants where they fetch a high price.  Policing this industry is very difficult, as many private drop-off points, accessible to ski-boats, exist along South Africa’s coastline of bays and estuaries. 

The total amount of fish harvested by commercial fisheries is an enormous amount.  The methods used are often very environmentally unfriendly.  The amount of fish, sharks, rays, seabirds and turtles that get killed and dumped as unwanted catch is inexcusable.  On top of that many marine mammals such as dolphins and seals often get entangled in the nets and drown.  Scientists are presently working with the commercial industry in an attempt to change methods to be more specific to the fish targeted and to limit by-catch.  Sustainable TACs are constantly being worked on, and refined in an attempt to prevent the resource from being over-utilized .  Recreational fishermen often blame the “trawlers” (commercial fishing vessels) for the decline and collapse of much of South Africa’s fish stocks.  One must remember that the fish targeted in the Demersal and Pelagic Fishery are completely different fish species to the shallow water fish targeted by the recreational fishermen.

The commercial fishing industry supplies South Africa with an important source of nutrition.  Many of the fish harvested commercially, are the ones most of us buy in fish shops, supermarkets and restaurants.  Consumers can play their part by obtaining the SASSI (South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative) pamphlet, from your nearest post office, CapeNature, SANParks or MCM Office.  The pamphlet puts popular eating fish into three categories, according to their levels of sustainability.  When buying fish, SMS the name of the fish to 0794998795 and SASSI will send you the information on that species.  The more empowered with knowledge South African consumers become, the more say we can have on our oceans resources.