Fishing to stop from tomorrow; boats return back to the shore

Team Udayavani, May 31, 2019, 8:53 AM IST

Mangaluru: In the backdrop of the concluding of the present fishing cycle on Friday, already boat at high seas are returning back to the coast. Close to 8000 boats that are functioning from Mangaluru fisheries port have returned back to the pert and around 200 more are expected to return by Friday.

The government has passed an order banning fishing via mechanized or traditional boats from June 1^st to July 31^st. Accordingly, no form of fishing can be attempted for the next 61 days by mechanized boats or traditional boats with inboard or outboard motors of more than 10hp through the use of nets or other equipment.

Not enough space to anchor boats

There are more than 1,000 motorized and mechanized boats that function from the fisheries port in the city. The present port is 600m long.

There is more or less opportunity for the anchoring of around 350 boats here. The remaining boats must depend on some other area. The situation is so bad that the boats are anchored one after another in 7 consecutive lines. Since the anchored boats include wooden as well as steel, many a times the boats end up damaged as they collide with one another.

Traditional boat fishing begins

Traditional boats venture out into the water for fishing as the mechanized boats drop anchor for the season. These boats which venture out into the water equipped with nets and 10hp engines, carry out fishing along the sea shore and river banks from June 1^st onwards. When the holiday from fishing is declared, the fishermen indulge in boat repair, weaving of nets and other works, informs Nithin Kumar, president of Trawl Boat Fishermen’s Association