Fishing Bonito

Yesterday the fish market at Las Galletas was closed in celebration of Saint Carmen’s day, so we set off again today to this pleasant coastal town to again try to film the fish market, in the hope that the townspeople had slept off the effects of the celebrations. While we never expect too much from a fish market, given the challenges the fishermen face in catching the few fish left, the market was even sorrier than we expected.

Of a row of 10 or 11 stalls, only four were open. These had very few fish, and most of the fish that were there were small fast reproducing species that are not really in demand by consumers. We filmed and photographed what we could, and chatted to the stall holders for a while. Just as we were leaving we noticed a fishing boat coming into the harbour, and ran over to see what it had caught and to talk to its fishermen.

The two García brothers on the Candelaria had been fishing Bonito and had caught an estimated 1,000 kilos of this small species of tuna. The Bonito are now in season and they had caught these fish from Montaña Roja (Red Mountain), just up the coast. The striped Bonito are a pretty fish with a firm dark red meat. Apart from a very small number of fish destined for the local market, all the Bonito brought in by the García brothers is exported to mainland Spain, where it is redistributed around the country and abroad.

Artesanal fishing vs factory fishing

Like many fishermen in the Canary Islands, the García brothers practice artesanal fishing. They catch each fish individually using a caña, a long cane with a hook at the end. They find a school of Bonito at night, attracting them to the boat using lights and spraying water to imitate small fish, and when the school arrives they catch them one by one, flipping them on deck.

One boat with two men can never deplete fish stocks on their own. They are limited by human factors such as strength, speed and fatigue; by how close to the boat the fish swim and how long they stay; and by natural factors such as weather and currents. Coastal over-fishing is not caused by individual artesanal fishermen, but by the fact that there are simply so many of them coupled with an increasing number of sport fishermen. Very few practice sustainable fishing. Without our even asking and in passing, the García brothers mentioned that they only go for the fish species in season and that they throw the small ones back to breed. The real cause of over-fishing is the destructive factory ships further out at sea that use radar to find schools of fish and then scoop up the whole school. Many set nets or use long lines which are indiscriminate about what they catch. Huge numbers of unwanted marine species are caught and then thrown dead overboard. Nets and long lines also kill birds, turtles and marine mammals.

The García brothers told us that the Bonito catch this year is low. There are far fewer fish, and they are much smaller than usual. They put this down to unseasonably bad seas and weather. I wonder.