Ezemvelo Wildlife officers, Margaret Mthalani and Innocent Cele hold up one of the illegal gillnets confiscated last week.
A TOTAL of eight gillnets were confiscated by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife officers over the space of a few days last week. The nets, or ‘Curtains of Death’, as they have often been termed, were found in the uMhlanga and eMdloti Lagoon, measuring 800 metres in length. Basil Pather, conservation manager at Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve, said the men were mainly targeting tilapia, a freshwater fish inhabiting shallow streams, ponds, rivers and lakes.
Poachers have on previous occasions told wildlife officers that they get as much as R1 800 per bucket of tilapia. One bucket holds up to 50 fish. Several of the smaller fish, like mullets, are sold for R7 each or consumed by the fishermen.
“What we’ve noticed is the men are proudly displaying what they think is a license for legally using gillnets, however because of misinformation, their nets as well as their catches are being confiscated. The Post Office is unwittingly selling a drag net (code 12) license to the men, who are also innocently buying the license, thinking it means they won’t be fined or caught. A drag net license is specifically for a vessel for the capture of prawns.
These fish were recently confiscated from the eMdloti lagoon. Poachers are targeting tilapia, a species of fish found in rivers and lakes. Poachers say they get between R1 000 and R1 800 per bucket.
“So in essence, we are having men trying to comply with the laws but unknowingly fishing illegally. A lot of the nets were recovered from the eMdloti lagoon. Because the mouth hasn’t been opened for so long, it’s created an ideal ground for tilapia and barbell, which have adapted to the conditions, and that’s what these men are targeting,” he said.
Pather said they had received several complaints from residents in the area.
Unlike cast nets, which are thrown in the water by hand and capture fish inside the net’s mesh, gillnets are set out stationary in the water and capture the fish by entanglement.
