A charity supporting fishermen and their families has said that the threat octopus are posing to our shellfish stocks is now so high that it will undoubtedly be a legacy problem that future fishermen have to deal with too.
For more than a year now the rising number of octopi in local waters has been decimating the amount of crab, lobster, and scallops caught.
Hayley Hamlett of The Fishermen’s Mission said she saw that the problem had grown even bigger on her recent visit to Guernsey compared to a year ago.
“When I came last year, it was just starting to be an issue with octopus in the waters around the islands,” she said.
“This year, I’ve come back, and it’s a much, much bigger problem than we feared, really. It’s costing the industry and it’s costing the fishermen an awful lot of money. It’s costing them an awful lot of morale too,” she said.
“They are literally going out and some pots can have three or four octopus in and no crab or no lobster, but lots of carcasses of crab or lobster, and they’re also eating a lot of scallops. And you know, usually scallops can be pretty much all year round, but not at the moment.”
Ms Hamlett’s work with The Fishermen’s Mission charity involves helping fishermen and their families access services and support organisations when needed.
While in Guernsey last week, she spoke to a number of fishermen and found that some are feeling the financial impact of the growing number of octopus in local waters.
“If (the fishermen) go out to sea, they know they have to catch a certain amount in order to be able to pay for all their bills to do with the boat and feed their families. Well, if you go out on a Monday and you don’t make any money, all of the cost of Monday rolls into Tuesday and so on and so forth. So if you have a few days where you’re not earning any money, your costs are increasing.
“Unfortunately, it’s pretty dire out there at the moment,” she added.
“Guernsey has got a real mixture of ages fishing, and none of them are not affected by this. It’s a huge problem.”
Ms Hamlett recognised that restaurants are trying to put octopus on the menu – with sales reliant on customers’ personal tastes.
She said even if everyone ate it the problem still wouldn’t disappear, with fishermen needing the community’s support more than ever as their industry evolves.
“I think it’s one of these things that is like a Marmite species, isn’t it? But even if every single person on the island ate it, I don’t think that would get rid of the problem.
“It is about looking at ways that the fishing industry can survive and carry on, but having said that, the guys are still really passionate. They’re still working really, really hard. They’re still going out. They’ve still got hope. If they didn’t have hope, they would just go, ‘let’s just hang up our wellies’, but they’re still going out and they’re still hopeful that their next catch or the next day out will be better.”