“We do not have any statistics for illegal fishing,” said Benedict Nene, fisheries control manager at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
“We mainly rely on reports of suspicious activity from the public.”
Ballito fisherman Craig Harries said that he has seen illegal activity at sea and reported it to Ezemvelo, but the boats are always gone by the time they respond.
“I have heard many reports that they arrive at night, between 8pm and 10pm, leaving at around 4am,” said Mike Ferreira, marketing director at Kingfisher.
“A big difficulty is that most of the fishing takes place at night,” said Nene, which makes it challenging to locate vessels conducting illegal operations.
