Another suspected illegal fishing trawler is allegedly operating off the Wild Coast, but South Africa’s fisheries department has gone silent on its response.
John Rance, environmental officer for the Border Deepsea Angling Association, whose members are watching the matter closely, said fisheries’ anti-poaching vessel Lillian Ngoyi was known to have left East London on Monday and was heading towards the Wild Coast.
Department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (Daff) spokeswoman Palesa Mokomele played her cards close to her chest and would not confirm this when contacted for comment yesterday.
Mokomele did say that on Monday Daff arrested two perlemoen poaching suspects who will be charged in the Centane Magistrate’s Court with pillaging 669 perlemoen.
Three Chinese fishing vessels and their skippers are still sitting in East London harbour under port arrest.
The skippers can only get off the boats with permission from the Hawks, but the 94 crew have freedom of movement.
Mokomele said yesterday: “I spoke to the prosecutor this morning. The case is before the court. Discussions are under way between the prosecutor and defence attorneys.
“The pronouncement on the vessels will be decided by the courts.”
On Monday night at Cebe, Wild Coast resident Barry Sahd said that soon after 6.15pm he and a neighbour watched a large vessel with “an enormous yellow light mounted high aft motoring at around four knots, less than 2km offshore.
“We got the binoculars out and watched it for 20 minutes. It was a clear starry night. It had that huge yellow light, like the others we have seen here, shining on the water. I know it was a trawler.
“It was moving towards Wavecrest and the marine protected area off Kei Mouth,” said Sahd.
Sahd alerted illegal trawler watcher, Marc van Wieringen, of the Salt Water SA Facebook group but he could not pick up the vessel’s position via its automatic identification system beacon – which is viewed as a tell-tale sign of illegal fishing.
Rance said the sighting had been relayed to Daff, but worried that as soon as Daff’s vessels are deployed to the area “the illegal fishing vessels scatter and run out deep waiting for the patrol vessel to depart”.
Rance wants the navy to get involved each time, as was done recently, with vessels lying in wait out deep for the perpetrators to run into them. “In Angola they used skiboats with armed fisheries inspectors to deploy quickly and without being detected from far away,” he said.
“They boarded the vessels with grapnels and climbing ropes.
“In Mozambique when an illegal vessel failed to stop and shot at the skiboat trying to apprehend them, the authorities took out the bridge with an RPG7 rocket launcher.”
The three detained skippers in East London harbour are due back in court on June 15, when it is expected that the squid and fish on board will have been analysed to see if they were caught in South African waters.
Suspected rogue trawler spotted off Wild Coast
John Rance, environmental officer for the Border Deepsea Angling Association, whose members are watching the matter closely, said fisheries’ anti-poaching vessel Lillian Ngoyi was known to have left East London on Monday and was heading towards the Wild Coast.
Department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (Daff) spokeswoman Palesa Mokomele played her cards close to her chest and would not confirm this when contacted for comment yesterday.
Mokomele did say that on Monday Daff arrested two perlemoen poaching suspects who will be charged in the Centane Magistrate’s Court with pillaging 669 perlemoen.
Three Chinese fishing vessels and their skippers are still sitting in East London harbour under port arrest.
The skippers can only get off the boats with permission from the Hawks, but the 94 crew have freedom of movement.
Mokomele said yesterday: “I spoke to the prosecutor this morning. The case is before the court. Discussions are under way between the prosecutor and defence attorneys.
“The pronouncement on the vessels will be decided by the courts.”
On Monday night at Cebe, Wild Coast resident Barry Sahd said that soon after 6.15pm he and a neighbour watched a large vessel with “an enormous yellow light mounted high aft motoring at around four knots, less than 2km offshore.
“We got the binoculars out and watched it for 20 minutes. It was a clear starry night. It had that huge yellow light, like the others we have seen here, shining on the water. I know it was a trawler.
“It was moving towards Wavecrest and the marine protected area off Kei Mouth,” said Sahd.
Sahd alerted illegal trawler watcher, Marc van Wieringen, of the Salt Water SA Facebook group but he could not pick up the vessel’s position via its automatic identification system beacon – which is viewed as a tell-tale sign of illegal fishing.
Rance said the sighting had been relayed to Daff, but worried that as soon as Daff’s vessels are deployed to the area “the illegal fishing vessels scatter and run out deep waiting for the patrol vessel to depart”.
Rance wants the navy to get involved each time, as was done recently, with vessels lying in wait out deep for the perpetrators to run into them. “In Angola they used skiboats with armed fisheries inspectors to deploy quickly and without being detected from far away,” he said.
“They boarded the vessels with grapnels and climbing ropes.
“In Mozambique when an illegal vessel failed to stop and shot at the skiboat trying to apprehend them, the authorities took out the bridge with an RPG7 rocket launcher.”
The three detained skippers in East London harbour are due back in court on June 15, when it is expected that the squid and fish on board will have been analysed to see if they were caught in South African waters.
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