The Fishing Industry

“Mark-ho!”

Anticipation starts to run through the ship`s crew as the call goes up.  The gear is about to be brought in.  The trawl net was shot in the early hours of dawn and it has been towed behind the trawler for 3-4 hours.  Now, with every man`s commission depending on the skipper`s success in selecting his fishing grounds, all eyes are turned anxiously aft.  First the doors come in, then the long sweeps, but before they have been hauled all the way in , the cod-end at the end of the net pops to the surface, forced there by extra buoyancy given it by the expanded swim-bladders of Cape hakes being brought up from depths of 250m or more.  There could be 10 tons of fish in the cod-end and most of it will be hake.  Naturally, Cape hake are not the only fish taken, but so dominant are they in the demersal ecosystem, that they constitute about three-quarters of the fish landed by deep-sea trawlers.

Worldwide men, women and children eat more fish than any type of animal protein.  It provides high quality protein, vitamins A and D, phosphorus, magnesium and selenium.  Iodine is also present in marine fish.  Fish oils in fatty fish are the richest source of a type of fat that is vital to normal brain development in unborn babies and infants.  Without adequate amounts of these fatty acids, normal brain development does not take place.  Closely spaced pregnancies, often seen in developing countries, can lead to the depletion of the mother`s supply of essential fatty acids, leaving younger siblings deprived of this vital nutrient at a crucial stage in their growth.  This makes fatty fish such as tuna, mackerel and sardine a particularly good choice for the diet of pregnant and lactating women.

Commercial fishing, or fishing for profit, began shortly after the arrival of Europeans and developed rapidly in the twentieth century.  In the early years of the fishery, Agulhas and West Coast sole were the primary target species, with hake being caught as an incidental by-catch only.  Directed fishing of Cape hakes began only towards the end of the First World War.  Total harvests from South African waters remained relatively small until 1950 when technological advances led to a rapid increase in the quantity of fish caught.  Today South Africa`s fisheries contribute approximately R2 billion to the national economy.  Some 28 000 people living in the coastal provinces are directly employed by the fishing industry, while another 60 000 people find employment in related sectors.

St Helena Bay is home to the fishing industry and has the largest concentration of fishing factories which provide more than half of the fish produced in south Africa annually.  These factories are distributed along the south-western coast of the bay and include communities like Stompneus Bay, West Point, Sandy Point and Steenberg`s Cove.  The cold waters on the western side of the country are highly productive and support enormous numbers of commercially important fish, including shoaling fish such as pilchard and anchovy and deep sea species such as hake, sole and kingklip.

The demersal (deep water) sector is South Africa`s most valuable commercial fishery and is worth over R1 billion annually.  The mainstay of the fishery is Cape hakes Merluccius capensis (shallow water hake) and Merluccius paradoxus (deep-water hake).  The South African pelagic fishery is the country`s second most valuable fishery, with 214 000 tons of anchovy and pilchard netted in 1996 at a value of R366 million.  These fish are mostly used for canning, fish-meal and oil.  Pelagic catches fluctuate from year to year and are largely dependent on environmental conditions.  Purse seine nets are used to encircle large shoals of pelagic fish:  the top of the net is buoyed by floats and the net hangs like a curtain.  Once the shoal has been encircled the net is pulled in, closing the bottom of the net like a purse.

Catches in the commercial line fishery peaked at 20 000 tons in the late 1960`s but then declined steadily.  Today approximately 13 000 tons of line fish species, such as yellowtail, snoek, kob and reef fish are harvested.  Line fish species are protected by a variety of management measures, but catches have declined to dangerously low levels due to increasing pressure from commercial and recreational fishers.

The South African marine environment is showing symptoms of over-exploitation and degradation, and the pressures that bear on marine resources are likely to increase in future.  Of all the threats to the marine environment, fishing is thought to be the greatest.  Fishing disrupts marine biodiversity by removing fish and disturbing the biological and physical environments.  Trawling equipment impacts the environment by scraping and ploughing the substratum.  Coral reefs and deep and deep sea environments have been severely impacted.  Fishing methods are seldom selective.  By-catch rates varies from 5% to 70%.  The effect of fishing on by-catch species is seldom known because these species are mostly not recorded in catches and not regulated by quotas.  A serious by-catch issue is currently the mortality of sea-birds inflicted by long-line operations. Fisheries are size-and species-selective and the tendency of fisheries to deplete large top predators first and then target the next largest species has substantially altered marine community structures.

The primary objective of fisheries management has been to ensure the sustained yield of fisheries, with less attention being paid to the effects of fishing on non-targeted species and the environment.  This creates serious consequences if the ecological structure and processes that support stock production are impacted by the fishing activity itself, or by other human activities or natural phenomena.