Fishing industry faces crisis after raid on prawn grounds 26/7/12
►Fishing industry faces crisis after east coast raid on Minch prawn grounds
Island fishermen may find themselves out of work and forced to tie up their boats after an east coast “raid” on the important prawn fishery in the Minch.
Severe restrictions on prawn fishing are due to be introduced as a temporary measure because an influx of stranger boats has almost wiped out the fishery allowances.
The limit of hours of prawn trawling on the west coast -
The planned restrictions could see the handful of larger island trawlers banned from the Minch for two thirds of the time and only allowed to go to sea for 10 days each month. Most fo the local fleet are smaller engine powered vessels but they would only get 16 days monthly.
The drastic move would not only hit fishermens’ earnings but also threatens onshore jobs as the local fleet supplies island factories which processes prawns for scampi for export to supermarket chains. Nearly 100 staff are employed at Barratlantic on Barra and at Youngs in Stornoway.
The crisis was caused by around 50 stranger boats competing with locals in the best prawn grounds around the islands and the west coast.
The last of them have now returned to their own North Sea waters but Marine Scotland, the fisheries agency of the Scottish Government is poised to curtail the west coast fishery.
Angry fishermen remind the government they gave clear warning early on that the larger east boat boats would decimate the fisheries this summer.
Western Isles Fishermen’s Association are demanding genuine concessions from the government to allow an economically sustainable level of fishing to continue over the winter.