SA Citizen Using Boat App Raises Alarm Over Possible Chinese Poaching
All but one of a group of trawlers suspected of fishing illegally in South African waters managed to evade the SA Navy patrol boat, after numerous concerned citizens had raised the alarm about the boats acting suspiciously offshore. A post on the Facebook page of Salt Fishing South Africa on Tuesday morning by Mark Hicks got shared […]
All but one of a group of trawlers suspected of fishing illegally in South African waters managed to evade the SA Navy patrol boat, after numerous concerned citizens had raised the alarm about the boats acting suspiciously offshore.
A post on the Facebook page of Salt Fishing South Africa on Tuesday morning by Mark Hicks got shared thousands of times, in which he said that with a simple cell phone app he had managed to track half a dozen Chinese fishing trawlers that suddenly disappeared off the Wild Coast. He posted screenshots showing how some of the boats had vanished for six hours.
“The screenshots (most of the boats carried the name Lu Huang Yuan Yu) below show how these vessels all disappeared from 9 to 3am this morning in an area known to be holding sardines amassing for their annual migration,” he said, asking how the navy was not able to detect this when he could do so with a simple phone app.
Another post, by Mark Auret, said, “I posted a picture of ten trawlers between Mskikaba and Port Grosvenor. This is another (separate occasion) from last week where there where 3 small ‘trawlers’.”
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries – whose authority the territorial waters fall under – said in a statement on Saturday that they had spotted nine vessels suspected of fishing illegally on South African waters, around Durban, Port St Johns and Cape Recife. Upon detecting suspicious activity, the navy’s Victoria Mxenge was sent in.
The boats agreed to go to Saldanha for inspection but during the night all went separate ways, the department said, and only one of the Lu Huang boats was escorted to Cape Town, where it arrived on Saturday.
“The Minister of Defence, Mrs Nosiviwe Mapisa Nqakula has instructed the South African Navy to assist with the chase,” the statement said.
Many people gave their congratulations to Hicks and other “armchair warriors” along the coast who raised the alarm that apparently led to the chase of the illegal fishers.