Discussions about how to support Guernsey’s fishing industry collapsed into hilarity this morning when Deputy John Gollop suggested relocating fish to help.
Octopus are currently decimating crab and lobster catches in some areas, and among the more serious suggestions were subsidies along similar lines to the farming industry and accelerating work to allow a tuna fishery to open.
Deputy Gollop pressed Environment & Infrastructure President Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez on the approach to the fishing industry and “how they could encourage and sustain the habitat balance and sustainable crab lobster and shellfish numbers and minimise octopi consumption damage?”.
“The presence of octopus in our waters is not a new phenomenon, as they have been previously observed in large numbers, prior to 1963 and anecdotally, before that time,” she said.
“The current increase in octopus population is being observed throughout the English Channel, on both the English and French coasts.
“The exact reason for the increase is not well understood and may be linked to climate change and other changes to the ecosystem.
“Octopus are not an invasive, non-native species, and are therefore not subject to any specific management, which would be difficult to implement.
“In any case, the sea fisheries team have spoken to a number of fishermen, and it is clear that the problem is worse in some areas or with certain strings of gear set within an area, there is some evidence that the shellfish is still present, but deterred from foraging as normal due to the presence of the octopus, due to the dexterity of an octopus, there are not many mitigations available to the shellfish shell fishermen to prevent them from entering pots, as this appears to be part of a cyclical population event.
“There is nothing substantive that the committee can do to restore a balance between octopus and shellfish, and certainly not at a reasonable cost.”
It was at this point that Deputy Gollop suggested trying to restore the habitat balance “by introducing or relocating some of the other fish to get a better balance”.
Deputy Marc Leadbeater had earlier asked Economic Development President Neil Inder about the fishing industry.
“Can the President tell me how advanced negotiations are for Guernsey to join the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas are in order for our fleet to gain quota and have the ability to diversify into the tuna markets and areas of our blue economy, such as catch and release sport fishing, like we now see across the UK and elsewhere?” he said.
“While this will be no magic bullet, it would create opportunities for our fleet to diversify. And does he believe that the industry is now in need of state subsidy similar to that provided to farmers by E&I?”
There was no update on membership of ICCAT which was still with DEFRA in the UK.
“One of the difficulties I think that the fishing industry has, it has a fishery, it has an association of fishermen, but in the last four years, I’ve never had anyone, any of them, through my door,” said Deputy Inder.
He suggested that they “can’t do things through the media” and the farming industry seemed more organised.
“I cannot guess my way through the problems which are significant, but the fishing associations do not appear to be organised enough to walk on a door to have that conversation.”
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