Freeport News Reporter
David & Paul Mellor
More environmental organizations are speaking out in protest against the tuna fishing program posed by brothers, David and Paul Mellor.
The Friends of the Evironment (FRIENDS), Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization (BMMRO) and many local fishermen have joined the long list of those opposed to The Bahamas Pelagic Aquaculture Tuna Program.
The Mellors have stated that the program that they hope to establish in the Bahamas, will facilitate and promote through scientific research and technical results the development of a substainable and profitable aquaculture industry that would be internationally recognized.
This plan also includes the harvesting of yellow fin tuna with a purse-seine net in the waters of Grand Bahama Abaco and and the Tongue of the Ocean.
The FRIENDS organization, along with others are urging the Bahamas Government to prohibit the Mellor's $2 million dollar vessel from fishing in our waters due to the current dismal state of yellow fin tuna stocks and the inevitable threat of by-catch (such as marine mammals, sea turtles, sharks and juveniles of many species).
"We have come to understand that current legislation does not provide The Bahamas government with the grounds to deny a permit request by the Bahamian operators of this vessel,' the statement read.
"FRIENDS urges the government to place a moratorium on purse-seine net fishing until proper legislation to ban such unsustainable fishing methods can be put into place. In the past, similar actions have been taken by The Bahamas Government with successful results, such as the moratorium on wild dolphin capture."
FRIENDS said The Bahamas government should deny any requests for permits to net yellow fin tuna in Bahamian waters and to support and implement more sustainable fishing methods.
"Currently, The Bahamas Government is investigating international certifications for our marine re-sources. The FRIENDS organization is of the view that experimenting with purse-seine netting in Bahamian waters is counter-productive to the country's goals to be more sustainable."
Meanwhile, the BMMRO issued a letter to the Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, Lawrence Cart-wright expressing concern about a permit to use a purse-seine vessel to fish for yellow-fin tuna in The Bahamas.
"Due to the lack of current regulations to govern such fishing activities, I urge your Ministry to decline the requested fishing permit for this vessel and to immediately place a moratorium on large-scale pelagic fishing operations until regulations are in place to ensure the sustainable use of our pelagic marine resources," the letter read.
"Purse-seine fisheries are well documented to incidentally catch many non-target species during fishing operations. Many of these species carry high economic and social value in The Bahamas both for Bahamians and tourists, primarily through the sport-fishing industry."
The letter furthered that tuna aggregates with other species so when a purse-seine net surrounds a tuna school, everything in the surface waters are caught as well, including juvenile and adult billfish, mahi mahi, jacks, triggerfish, and even pelagic dolphins.
"So, although current tuna harvests in the Atlantic are reported by the International Commission for the Conser-vation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) at near sustainable levels, there are concerns that the indiscriminate by-catch in purse-seine fishing may result in the collapse of pelagic ecosystems on which many species depend, including our resident populations of dolphins and whales."
The BMMRO said now is not the time for compromises or experimentation with new fishing methods – without adequate regulations because we simply have too much to lose.
Recently the The Bahamas National Trust also issued a statement against this type of fishing.
President of The Marina Operators of the Bahamas, John Bethell, spoke out on the matter and said that this type of fishing could not be good for The Bahamas.
"We're going to join with the National Trust and FRIENDS and the other organizations that have spoken out against this and lend our support to it. I mean it certainly isn't a good thing. You know, we try to encourage people to come over here and fish, and you have this one guy that's going to go out and catch all the fish, kind of thing. It's items like that and action like that that make it better if we speak as one."
Local fisherman, Peter Rose said that back in the 1930s, to the 80s he and his collegues fished blue fin tuna, which can hardly be found now in Bahamain waters.
"Nothing was regulated back then. We just went out and killed it, hung it up took a picture of it and then we dumped them in the ocean. Now there is no blue fin in the Bahamas. If we see two or three a year we are lucky," he said.
"We have destroyed an entire population of fish by simple line fishing. We can't let this happen to the yellow fin tuna with such large scale fishing."
Rose said that this could not only affect our marine resources but our tourism industry as well.
"Marinas depend on getting tourist in to fish who want to catch tuna. If they know that this is gonig on we will be boycoted. They would no longer have a reason to come here. If our government can't see that and step forward and be one of the only countries in the world that will not allow this then we shouldn't put them back in to power during the next election," Rose said.
The Mellors have maintained that in no way are they trying to deplete the tuna resources in our waters but are aiming to establish a type of aquaculture.
If managed correctly, the brothers said that it could create jobs for Bahamians and ensure that The Bahamas and the world's tuna stock continue to stay at near perfect levels.
The Freeport News made numerous attempts to contact officals from the Department of Marine Resources on the matter, however up until press time yesterday our calls wee not returned.
At last report the Mellors' vessel was said to be the centre of an invesigation being conducted by the department.
