By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The National Fisheries Association’s (NFA) president yesterday asserted that last month “will go down in history as the best August” the industry has ever had with poaching cut by up to “95 percent”.

Keith Carroll told Tribune Business that, based on his conversations with multiple fishermen, the industry has enjoyed “one of the best Augusts” ever seen due to regulators and the private sector all “working in tandem” to crack down on illegal practices and ensure compliance.

“I would say this August, I think, will go down in history as the best the fishermen have ever had,” he told this newspaper. “We must give thanks to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force for the job they’ve done in the past six to seven years in the Bahamas. They’ve just reduced the poaching by about 90-95 percent.

“This is the result we are getting from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force doing their job. The Fisheries Department is cracking down on under-sized crawfish, and the commercial fisheries houses will not take them and will return them to you.

“That’s the result of everything working together. The fishermen know that if they protect the lobster, the lobster will protect them. It shows this is what the Defence Force is trying to do, what the Fisheries Department is trying to do, and what the fishermen are trying to do. Everything is working in tandem.”

Poaching, whether by foreigners such as Dominicans and Americans, as well as Bahamians, plus catching and selling under-sized crawfish, having been among the most common practices undermining lobster populations and threatening the industry’s sustainability. Improvements in these areas thus bode well for its future.

“Just from what I’m hearing from different islands and different boats going out, and talking to them as they’re coming back in, I think this is one of the best Augusts that will go down in the history of The Bahamas,” Mr Carroll reiterated. 

“The price is also better off than last year. This time last year we were getting $10m, and this year we’re getting around $11.50 and $12 per pound. Usually prices get better as the season goes on, and usually at the end they will be better than at the start.

“It will go up slowly, but hopefully it goes up. Anywhere between $12 and $15 a pound would be good. But you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes things cause it to drop, sometimes it goes up.” 

Asked whether August is any indication of the full crawfish season’s outcome, and whether this momentum can be maintained, Mr Carroll replied: “It all depends on the weather. If we have no storms, no bad storms, we’re looking to have a good season. We had a good August and hopefully it continues through the season, but that depends on hurricanes.

“If things go the way they’re going, I think everything will be OK. If we have a bad storm, boats lose their condos, fishermen lose their traps. It puts you back. August was a record-breaking month for the divers, and we had everyone saying they did better and this was the best year. All the divers were saying it. It’s off to a pretty start. If there are no storms we should have a good season.”

Paul Maillis, the NFA’s secretary, earlier this year also hailed the “fantastic” progress in combating foreign poachers as fishermen bid to match the “record catches” enjoyed by many during last year’s crawfish season.

“The one thing we can count on is that lobster stocks are very healthy, and the work done to combat out-of-season poaching from the Dominican Republic, in particular, has been fantastic,” he said then. “I can’t recall the last time there was a blatant, huge poaching vessel sitting in Bahamian waters catching hundreds of thousands of pounds of Bahamian fisheries product.

“That was the norm for decades. There are still desperate poachers out there, but they have been forced further and further to the outside of our territory, and we are seeing the results with grouper, lobster and other species.” Mr Maillis said the drastic reduction in foreign poaching in Bahamian waters was just one of the reasons Bahamian fishermen are viewing the upcoming crawfish season with optimism.

Asserting that 2024 will be “looking good” if catches match 2023’s, he conceded that last year saw many fishermen receive one of the lowest per pound prices in recent times, but added that the increased volumes had helped to at least partially offset the financial impact.

The NFA secretary said the recent grouper season, which ran from December 1 to February 28, had provided further encouragement as it had proven “record breaking” for some fishermen, while fuel costs seemed to have “stabilised” in comparison to the immediate post-COVID years.

He revealed, though, that the NFA and wider fisheries industry remain concerned over the regulations that will accompany the already-passed Fisheries Act and are now being finalised. Mr Maillis disclosed that there are “some concerning provisions that we hope don’t make the final cut” as he cautioned against imposing too much bureaucracy and red tape on the sector.