Fishing vessels return to moorings ahead of ban period

With the sea condition getting rough, hundreds of big vessels returned to moorage ahead of the annual fishing ban, fishermen said on Tuesday. The returning fishermen told Business Recorder that the changing weather pattern is pushing the seafarers to wind up their deep-sea hunting as tide began to rise.
"About 90 percent of big vessels reached moorage as the government has also announced the annual fishing ban will start from July 1," they said, adding that the fishing activities will resume on August 1. They said the fishermen in a meeting with government officials and other fisheries stakeholders reached an agreement to ban selling and purchasing of seafood in July. "Fishing ban always remains in place but market purchasing seafood does not stop in ban period," they said.
The government, they said, will also not issue any fishing documents to the outgoing boats after June 15 and the Customs officials will disallow them to steer towards deep-sea hunting after June 30. In high-tide sea, they pointed out, the fish and shrimp species come up on the surface with huge waves, which make easy their hunting for fishermen. They said the catch size rises during high-tide period in the Arabian Sea.
"Nearly 650 big fishing vessels have anchored at the dock of Karachi fisheries harbour, which create problems for small boats to move through navigational channel," they complained. There are about hundreds of abundant or non-functional boats which are docked at the harbour and with the ban more and more vessels will throng to anchor there, they added.
To a question, they said that about two decades back, the Karachi coast would abound a large number of different fish species which was a great source of livelihood for fishermen but the marine pollution ravaged the sea. They said the changing weather pattern also dislodged marine species to other countries coasts and the present sea condition would previously appear in April-May period some 15 years ago. Urging the government, the seafarers said the marine pollution should be contained from spreading beyond the country's maritime belt and stressed efforts to protect the species from early demise or their exodus to deep-sea.