Kenya fishermen see upside to pirates: more fish

Jan. 22, 2010

MALINDI, Kenya (AP) — People here have one thing to thank Somali pirates for: Better fishing.

In past years, illegal commercial trawlers parked off Somalia’s coast and scooped up the ocean’s contents. Now, fishermen on the northern coast of neighboring Kenya say, the trawlers are not coming because of pirates.

“There is a lot of fish now, there is plenty of fish. There is more fish than people can actually use because the international fishermen have been scared away by the pirates,” said Athman Seif, the director of the Malindi Marine Association.

AP

On one early morning, as the sun bathed their wooden dhow in a pale yellow, four fishermen jumped out of their rickety 15-foot boat, grabbed a hand-woven straw basket and waded ashore. The basket held the bounty: 175 pounds (80 kilograms) of sailfish, barracuda and red snapper, the haul from a 12-hour night on the ocean. Each fisherman stood to make $12, enough in this town to be considered a decent night’s work.

Fishermen and sportsmen say they’ve been catching more fish than ever. Howard Lawrence-Brown, who owns Kenya Deep Sea Fishing, said fishing stocks over the last year have been up “enormously – across all species.”

“We had the best marlin season ever last year,” said Lawrence-Brown, who owns Kenya Deep Sea Fishing. “The only explanation is that somebody is not targeting them somewhere. … There’s definitely no question about it, the lack of commercial fishing has made a difference.”

Source: AP news