There is no official way of knowing how severely octopus are decimating fish and shellfish stocks as Sea Fisheries data on catches is now more than two years out of date.
While it is widely acknowledged that octopus numbers have dramatically increased in local waters over the past two years, and have ravished crab and lobster pots in that time, the body tasked with monitoring catches is well behind on its admin.
The most recent Sea Fisheries Section Statistical Report that is available is from 2022.
That report includes data on locally registered fishing vessels, sea temperatures, ormer, shellfish, and wetfish stocks and catches, sea netting, trawling, and diving, and more.
However, the reports for 2023 and 2024 have not yet been published because of staff shortages says Sea Fisheries.
In response to a Freedom of Information request lodged by an anonymous person, the Committee for Economic Development, which oversees Sea Fisheries, admitted that the data hasn’t all been compiled yet.
A spokesperson said that this is down to staff shortages.
“The collection and analysis of catch and effort statistics is a considerable administrative task and staff shortages has, unfortunately, resulted in delays in reporting. The statistics for 2023 are in the final stages of preparation for publishing with the full report becoming available imminently. Statistics for the 2024 season are currently being compiled and these should be ready for publication within the next two weeks.”
The FoI request had also asked about enforcement action over the past decade.
The ED spokesperson said Sea Fisheries regularly get calls about various matters.
“The Sea Fisheries team receives on average twenty to thirty calls/alerts per annum where potential infringements of fisheries legislation are reported, or where the team has detected a potential infringement during routine patrols. These are assessed by the team and where appropriate, officers attend these incidents and in some cases commence enforcement proceedings. There have been seven such cases in the last ten years that have resulted in criminal conviction or sanction.”
The lack of data around fishing catches over the past few years may concern some in the industry as the impact of octopus on local stocks has been well documented anecdotally.
It’s widely accepted that lobster and crab supplies are well down on previous years as octopus are eating them all before the fishermen can get there.
There is evidence to suggest that octopus are also eating ormers, scallops, and more too.
Octopus like the ‘common octopus’ pictured above often live on the seabed but also in deeper waters, and they can thrive in temperatures around 15/16c.
The data provided in the 2022 Sea Fisheries Section Statistical Report proved that our sea temperatures had risen from a coldest of below 9c to a warmest of around 17c to a range of between 9.5c and 18.5c.
The sea temperature currently is 16.3c – slightly above the historic average for October.
The data for 2022 also confirmed an ongoing decline in the fishing fleet.
That data aligned with the apparent decline in people working in the fishing industry as observed through the information used to compile Guernsey’s electronic rolling census.
Statistics collated by the States through various means showed that the number of professional fishermen working in Guernsey had more than halved in less than a decade.
In 2015 there were 113 fishermen – either employed (7) or self employed (106). That had dropped to 58 by 2023.
More recent data around the population, employment, and earnings of people living in Guernsey is also delayed due to ongoing issues around the verification of information held by the Revenue Service.