The authorities have swooped on a suspected rogue fishing vessel after a joint surveillance operation pointed to the plundering of a Transkei marine protected area.
Frances Craigie, the chair of Operation Phakisa’s Initiative Five on integrated law enforcement, confirmed on Tuesday night that officials had begun monitoring the Prins Willem I on April 21 after alerts from members of the public.
“Acting on evidence accumulated regarding fishing in a marine protected area and fishing without a permit, we then inspected the vessel when it docked in Port Elizabeth and found nine tons of fish on board.
“The boat was seized and the investigation is continuing.”
Luphumlo Jonas, a ship surveyor at the Port Elizabeth office of the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa), said they had received a request from the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries to inspect the seaworthiness of the Cape Town-registered tuna long line fishing vessel.
“It was found to be unseaworthy,” he said.
“The safety authority is in the process of detaining it for sailing with expired certificates and not being suitably manned.
“It is prohibited from sailing.”
Border Deep Sea Angling Association environmental officer John Rance, who alerted the authorities to the earlier incident involving the Prins Willem I, applauded the swift response.
“There have been too many reports of this nature along the Transkei coastline for this to be an isolated incident,” Rance said.
“As members of the public and fishermen concerned about the conservation of fish stocks, we are very concerned about this and grateful that [the department] and Samsa appear to have taken stern action regarding this matter.”
Rance said he and his crew had been fishing off Kei Mouth north of East London at about 9am on April 21 when they spotted what appeared to be a fishing vessel travelling within the nearby Kei-Nyara section of the Amathole Marine Protected Area.The vessel was travelling suspiciously slowly indicating that it could be fishing, so they approached it.By the time they caught up to it, the vessel had increased speed and had exited the protected area but they were able to identify and examine it, he said.“There were four cables deployed out the back and there also appeared to be trolling fishing lines, one of which had a surface bird lure splashing just beyond the wake.“Crew [members] appeared to be gutting fish on the working deck and others appeared to be coiling lines with hooks attached into drums.“The fairly large hooks attached to thick lines were clearly visible.“Someone who appeared to have authority came down from the upper deck and spoke to the crew, who then appeared to stop what they had been doing. That person and the crew appeared to be suspiciously uncomfortable at being observed so closely.”The Prins Willem I’s vessel monitoring system had not been activated and fishing gear was not stowed as per the stipulated regulations for marine protected areas, Rance said.In a separate report, fishermen Conrad Ramsay and Murray Andrews described spotting a fishing vessel on the same day in Morgan’s Bay in the same protected area.“This vessel was well within the MPA and had three to four lines out the back of the vessel,” their report said.