The Basque fleet is considering abandoning the bonito season, whose results have been bad so far and turn to anchovy fishing.
This was announced by the secretary of the Federation of Fishermen’s Associations of Gipuzkoa, Miren Garmendia, after the central government decided to reopen the anchovy fishing in the Bay of Biscay with a quota of 2,000 tonnes.
A few days ago, the associations of Cantabria, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa expressed their opposition to the decision of the Executive, believing that this could impact on the 2015 spring season.
Therefore, they requested the head of the Fisheries Secretariat, Andres Hermida, who they accuse of having “bowed to pressure” from Galicia, must be dismissed from office, EFE agency reports.
Garmendia argues that “if the fishery is open, it is so for everyone”, so vessels of the Basque Country are thinking of “abandoning the bonito to fish anchovy.”
The “bad fishing season” that Basque fishermen are experiencing leads them to evaluate whether it is sensible to meet the costs involved in moving to Ireland or not “to find a bonito that is complicated to capture, while there are 2,000 tonnes of anchovy here and it is possible to catch this species two hours away,” she explained.
“Then, if all the [Basque] fleet turns to anchovy, since they have the same right as the Galician vessels, we think the 2,000 tonnes can easily be depleted,” added Garmendia.
In her view, the decision to reopen the anchovy season “on a unilateral basis clearly breaks the rules of the game set to benefit a particular fleet.”
For future anchovy seasons, Garmendia requests a new model establishing quotas following the calendar year instead of the current one, which sets the total allowable catch (TAC) between 1 July of one year and 30 June of the following one.
On the other hand, the Galician purse seine fishing sector ensured they do not want to enter a “war on anchovy” and stated that they would like to discuss the issue and reach understanding between the different communities sector and the Administration, reported La Opinión.
Meanwhile, a member of the majority Association of Purse Seiners of Galicia (ACERGA), Andres Garcia, recalled that during the meeting of the purse seine sector committee of the Galician Fisheries Council it was unanimously rejected to close the fishery in the area VIIIc from Finisterre to the Bay of Biscay “because it is a measure on which a producers’ organization has no jurisdiction, since it rules the resource management and not its marketing.”
In defense of the decision of the General Fisheries Secretariat, Hermida ensured the reopening of the fishery guarantees sufficient quota for 2015 in the Bay of Biscay and decried the Cantabrian and Basque fishermen’s “unsupportive” attitude.
He said that if the 2,000 tonnes approved now are captured, with the 2,000 that have already been captured, the 25 per cent of the quota would be covered until July.
“I think that with a reservation of 75 per cent for 2015 it is more than enough,” he stressed. And while he said that the whole purse seine sector of Biscay could catch this quota, he admitted that it would be more logical for the Galician sector to land it because the fish appeared on their shores.
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