Fishing season starts in Turkey amid activist worries

With the end of the seasonal fishing ban Sept. 1, many fishermen set off to sea in the early hours of the morning in coastal cities around Turkey, though controversy continued over the resumption of fishing.

Between April 15 and Sept. 1, a fishing ban on large boats was in effect in Turkey and large industrial fishing vessels and trawlers were legally prohibited from traversing the country’s seas.

With the end of the ban, fishermen say the prices of fish will go down.

“We caught more than we hoped. We caught a lot of mackerel, horse mackerel and haddock. Now we sell one mackerel for 5 Turkish Liras. A kilogram of horse mackerel goes for 4 liras. People will be able to eat cheap fish,” said fisherman Ayhan Aydemir in Samsun.

Another fisherman, Hamza Köksoy from Edirne, said they went out fishing late at night and had their catch in shops by early morning.

“The season just started. The prices will go down even more,” he said.

Environmentalists meanwhile repeated their call to extend the fishing ban till Oct. 1, saying the period from April to October is the crucial time when fish lay their eggs.

The original length of the ban, which used to run from April 1 to Sept. 1 before large fishing interests lobbied for it to start later, must be reinstated, if not extended to Oct. 1, said Bayram Öztürk, the chairman of the Turkish Marine Research Foundation, or TUDAV, and a professor of fish biology at Istanbul University.

“This is a political issue rather than a technical one,” Öztürk said.

Greenpeace officials also said in a written statement that the size of catchable fish as determined by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock is not big enough. Greenpeace recently launched a campaign asking Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker to sign a memorandum that would strengthen regulations on the catch size of endangered fish. The ministry subsequently said in an announcement that the minimum catch size would be increased from 14 to 20 centimeters for bluefish and from 30 to 45 centimeters for grouper.

“We wish a good season to all our fishermen. Yet, the size of 20 centimeters for blue fish is still very low. Most bluefish start reproducing at 24 to 25 centimeters and therefore the limit should at least be 25 centimeters,” the group said in its statement.


/Hurriyet Daily News/