Tag: DAFF

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban

Caught in the shark nets. It happens all the time. Dolphins. Whales. Turtles. Even huge kob and couta. Fall victim to the indiscriminate slaughter with gill nets. Randomly executed by the Kwazulu Natal Sharks Board.

And this beautiful young black marlin is also now dead too. All for what? There are so many practical measures you can put in to effect, other than gill netting, to curb shark/human interactions. If you look closely, there is a bite mark amidships the marlin’s body. This is how more and more animals get caught up and die. Feeding on fish already trapped in the suffocating nets. These nets kill thousands each year. Meshed by professional crews with top notch killing equipment. Always with new boats, outboards and land cruisers. Petrol. In 1990, these guys had 44.4 km of gillnets covering 14% of the 326km coastline, between Richards Bay and Mzamba. Can you believe that?

Their annual average catch between 2009 and 2014 was a good 441 sharks killed per year. They kill an average of 26 Great Whites. And it’s very difficult to find out how many dolphins and other cetaceans are killed. Turtles. Fish…

And there are a host of players out there nowadays, selling all sorts of technological solutions, that can be applied at any beach. Any surf spot. At a fraction of the cost.

For many years, we have campaigned against shark nets. And there was light at the end of the tunnel with shark POD technology developed in co-operation with the bungling Natal Sharks Board. They stopped the distribution under their own directive in 2001. And stuck with the murderous gill nets.

Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban
Black marlin caught in shark nets off Durban. It takes four bungling government entities for this to happen. Thanks to Chris Leppan of Umhlanga, who put this on our desk.

Here is a list of the shark protection devices, that cost a marginal tiny amount of what it costs to kill sharks at a beach for one year. The beaches could ALL be equipped with these devices, and even given out freely for the public to use (with an ID Card of course). Or even rented. The money that the bloated Natal Sharks Board and the failing Ezimvelo uses, could absorb these costs from savings by pulling out the nets and meshing teams.

https://sharkshield.com/

 

http://www.sharkprotection.com.au/

And a very cool video showing the results of extensive testing done with the infamous Great White Shark…by Shark Shield. It CLEARLY is the way to go.

There are many more products now using the exact same principles and technology that the Natal Parks Board could have harnessed all those years ago. There have been many attacks in this time. That, if they could have been avoided by implementing these breakthrough technologies, are squarely the fault of the Natal Sharks Board.

Sonar instead of shark nets

Then when we realised the beaurocratic mess the board was tied up in, we tried to help. We proposed rigging beaches with off the shelf sonar equipment rather. Fish finders. Feed this data back to a control station, and we can eliminate human shark encounters by monitoring for big animals and alerting the bather public with flag signals and alarms. It never went forward like the rest of the world did. They had this information more than a decade back and refused to use it.

Enter the Clever Buoy. Here is a special device that uses sonar technology and can easily detect sharks in order to operate early warning systems. The system is already deployed extensively and is a proven way to protect humans and sharks at the same time.

We presented the exact technology to the Natal Sharks Board over a decade ago. Extensive research and presentations. Went through many unfruitful meetings. Were eventually sidelined. And this technology too was lost to the Australians.

The latest chapter in the future of our marine life is that the KZN clown show are attempting to marry the two failing organisations – the Natal Parks Board, and Ezimvelo. The scandals within Ezimvelo are enough to run a soap opera with. And the fact that the abominable Natal Sharks Board, an illegal organisation that operates exactly like a fishery, gill nets, licenses, and all, is beyond me. Wood for the trees. But they also can’t keep up with their expenses.

Now we have DAFF taking Ezimvelos job too. The main players in the debacle are 1. the KZN Government to start with, 2. the Government Department doing the job of the 3. Government Organisation that is supposed to protect the sharks and the 4. Government Organisation that is supposed to kill the very same sharks – all in the same series!

Stay on this channel!

More articles with more facts about the Kwazulu Natal Sharks Board and their R60 million or more budget are right here…

https://thesardine.co.za/2015/06/01/why-the-natal-sharks-board-lies-all-the-time/

https://thesardine.co.za/2015/07/20/how-to-stop-the-natal-sharks-board-from-killing-our-sharks/

 

 

Share
Posted on by — 1 Comment

DAFF removes illegal drive-by fish market at Hibberdene quickly and effectively

DAFF Contact Details

DAFF removes illegal drive-by fish market at Hibberdene quickly and effectively

It never took a day. Following procedure, we called the Senior Marine Inspector for DAFF, Mr. Bongani Pitoyi, to alert DAFF of the illegal (and dangerous) highway fish market in Hibberdene. There were literally a hundred of these poachers. Scattered all around the N2 and R102 interchange. Bunches of crayfish. And none of the shad were looking legal sized at all.

We had made a late call to Bongani, we were on our way home after a long day of sardine patrol. And so the very next morning we set out, nice on early, back on our beat. They were gone! None left. We verified this the next day. And the next.

But if we had not called Bongani up, they would still have been there. And this is the thing. DAFF are really understaffed. Spread thinly over hundreds of kilometres of coastline zones. They cannot afford, or do not have the means, to be everywhere at once. Even Ezimvelo could’nt do that.

But we can. In our individual capacities, all armed with cellphone cameras – we can form the network required for DAFF to do it’s job effectively.

In Umkomaas, the good guys there that patrol the Umkomaas Estuary system and surrounding rivers, (Emil Pirzenthal and George Snodey are ring leaders), work with DAFF and the police to continually fight the war on nets going on there right now. Nets are somehow getting down the KZN coast and wreaking untold havoc on our already maimed estuaries. Without these guys being activists, thousands upon thousands more fish would have been killed. For the angler in you, the Oxe-Eye Tarpon, a coveted and rare catch for any sportfisher, were discovered in the nets. Some were rescued, many not. But get on down to the Umkomaas with your fly-rod, and keep an eye out for suspicious activity at the same time.

This is the point. We are everywhere, all the time.

Just as Apple iPhones all have built in barometers, and can feed weather data back to a server for processing in real time – we can feed back poacher data to DAFF. They can then direct resources to the particular problem, as they did in Hibberdene, and sort the problem out.

Complaining and whining about how many shad were destroyed this year, carried off the beach in buckets, is not going to help.

If you witness such a travesty, call the team at DAFF!

DAFF Contact Details

  •  The DAFF vessel operating in our area – The Ruth First, is usually off the Transkei. Their number is 079 773 6514 and Inspector Teyise is on board right now. These are the crew to report suspicious fishing vessel activity to
  • Our contact, Senior Marine Conservation Inspector Mr. Bongani Pitoyi is on 071 765 2533, and is extremely helpful and effective on all matters big and small
  • Another number you can call is Deputy Director Mr Moshani on 076 780 5049

Read about Trawler Watch here.

As a tailend, we would just like to highlight the fact that not one person has called in a suspicious trawler, since Robbie van Wijk nailed one off Mdumbi two whole months ago. Perhaps the presence of the Ruth First and the Sarah Baardman has actually kept the foreign plunderers away. And that is why we are getting sardines through this year, all the way to Durban? Thanks to Robbie! Our devout and deep undercover sardine spy way down in Mdumbi. And DAFF of course.

Could be.

Share