Roll on the warmer weather if it has anything to do with the fact that the entire fishing industry seems to have gone into hibernation! Even the newspapers have been struggling to fill the pages lately.
A ‘hot’ news item as we went to press was that one of Sea Harvest's trawlers had collided with an ore tanker. Fortunately the crew were all safe, unfortunately for the company, already experiencing difficult times, its trawler sank.
The weather also took its toll on a small fishing trawler, Trade Winds, which sank at her mooring in East London after having apparently been battered against the quay wall by strong winds leading her to puncturing her side and causing her to sink. Salvage teams were however able to refloat her.
Despite the many incidents of fishermen falling overboard and boats capsizing Nigel Campbell of SAMSA says there has been some improvement regarding compliance of safety measures but also highlights where the problems are remaining. Come on people, it is a harsh and uncompromising environment out there; you simply cannot afford to take risks.
Many companies received an invitation to promote what technological, electronic and communication products they have that enhance fishing techniques used by fishing companies and fishermen. Unfortunately the response to what was a fine marketing opportunity was overwhelmingly disappointing. You can read what was received as well as a tried and tested technique to prevent seabird mortality, courtesy of Barry Watkins who was the second South African to enter the WWF Smart Gear competition.
Still on an environmental issue, Namibia has been taking flak lately about its seal culling programme. Criticism is varied but of interest is that in 2000 when 42000 seals were culled the commercial value was less than USD3 per seal. Seal Alert SA is leading an international campaign to ban seal harvesting in Namibia, but it says the Namibian government offered the International Fund for Animal Welfare an opportunity to buy out the two sealers in Namibia to finally end the culling but the offer was rejected.
To conclude, I bring to your attention the Marine Insurance workshop taking place in the first week of September. Among other issues being discussed will be the affect of diminishing quotas on risk and the viability of the industry regarding the export of fish. Don’t miss the boat, last year the same workshop was oversubscribed and Roger Field tells me seats are selling fast.
As a last word news and photographs (in JPEG format) are most welcome and can be emailed to me at trachandler@telkomsa.net.

Editor

Cover Story

Anyone who saw the Carte Blanche programme on MNet a few weeks back will know that from July measures were introduced to limit seabird mortality. According to BirdLife SA hundreds of thousands of seabirds have drowned, a third of these albatrosses, of which 18 of the 20 species are listed as threatened.
Tori lines scare birds which is why BirdlifeSA and WWF have joined forces with the Kommetjie Environmental Awareness Group to launch a great initiative with handicapped residents of Ocean View in Cape Town who have agreed to make streamer lines for the local fishing fleet. It's a win-win situation but ultimately it boils down to a "winning skipper" to make sure that indeed seabird mortality is minimised.