By LISA S. KING
FN Asst. Editor
lisa@nasguard.com
While some local fishermen continue to catch undersized crawfish, the restaurants that buy it from them are strongly being advised to refrain from such acts.
Fisheries Officer Clement Campbell said there are fishermen in Grand Bahama who are catching undersized or juvenile crawfish and selling them to restaurants that make dishes such as lobster bisque and lobster salad.
Current regulations state that fishermen must not harvest undersized tails and meet the minimum requirement of having the tails no less that five-and-a-half inches. They are also not to take female crawfish carrying eggs or use chemicals such as bleach in the coral reefs to capture them.
He noted that because the crawfish is a seafood that is in high demand, fishermen are taking the risk of disobeying the season regulations to provide undersized crawfish tails to certain restaurants, who are unfortunately buying it from them.
"I know, we know that certain restaurants are doing it and I will like to advise them to stop buying crawfish at that size," Campbell said. "If the demand was not there, then the fishermen would not supply it. The only reason these fishermen would catch undersized crawfish is because they know that they have buyers for them. This is where the problem starts from."
Campbell said the public may not know it, but not all restaurants buy normal sized crawfish.
Observing a number of tricks that fishermen use to abuse the system, he gave details of a boat that pulled up at Sweetings Cay where the fishermen had a certain amount of crawfish by the pound.
He added that they were taken out of their shells and so a correct determination could not be made what size the shell was that they came out of. But, he said they were able to detect that the portions that were bagged were very small.
"We all knew that they had bagged the crawfish to sell. They were not taking those small portions home to eat," he said. "They knew exactly who they were taking them to for sale. I believe there are certain restaurants on this island that are encouraging the fishermen to bring them in because they are buying it. If they stop buying it, then the fishermen would not catch them at that size."
The crawfish season opened on August 1 and will close on March 31, 2008. The Fisheries Department has issued a public notice to all fishermen that they must comply with the regulations or they will be brought before the courts and charged for being in breach of the Fisheries Act.
Campbell said the rules governing the crawfish season were not created yesterday, but have been around for a long time, however, every year the same thing happens where some fishermen are not adhering to the rules where some of them are willing to take the risk and catch undersized crawfish tails to make a dollar.
"My advice to them is to stop doing it because we will come and search them at any time and even to the restaurant owners, we have the authority to come and examine the size of the crawfish they are cooking," he said. "There is a dish being served called the conch and lobster salad and they are not boiling a big crawfish to make that salad."
Campbell said whenever they do discover that fishermen have undersized crawfish out of the shell in bags by the pound, it is very difficult at times picking them out.
Another thing he is concerned about is the number of juvenile conchs the restaurants purchase as well.
Campbell said that he wishes the government could go back to the old law which was created in the 60s in which the season opened in September because in August the crawfish are still spawning. "So when you kills one crawfish that is spawning, you kill at least about half a million eggs," he said.
"This allows one to imagine how many crawfish are killed during the month of August. So if it could go back to September, it would really be in the best interest of the country."
TOO SMALL – Fisheries Officer Clement Campbell holds up an undersized crawfish tail which he said is too small for fishermen to be capturing and advises local restaurants to stop purchasing them.(Photo by JENNEVA RUSSELL)
