For the first time in the BK Big Fish tournament’s eight-year history, not a single mahi-mahi, also known as dolphinfish, was caught by the more than 350 sport anglers at the annual competition in mid-March.
Now there are concerns that a World Bank-funded initiative to train and equip Jamaican anglers to catch highly migratory fish could be having an impact on local fishing, and on the Cayman Islands’ marine ecosystems more broadly.
Boat engines, fish attraction devices and longlines that stretch for many miles, each baited with hundreds of hooks, are part of a multi-million-dollar programme that is funding and teaching Jamaican anglers to better target and catch highly migratory, pelagic species, which inhabit the open ocean, such as wahoo, marlin, mahi-mahi, swordfish and tuna.
A spokesperson from the Cayman Islands Department of Environment said, “An increase in the use of longline fishing gear in the Caribbean is concerning to hear about.
“Longlining fishing methods are often controversial due in part to potentially unsustainable approaches leading to overfishing, by catch of non-target species, including turtles, sharks and sea birds and the loss of fishing gear and marine mammal entanglement.”
The spokesperson added, “Many marine species caught further from shore are typically migratory, moving between different jurisdictions and management regimes, so impacts in one area can often be felt much further afield.”
Captain Richard Orr, owner of Blue Water Excursions which offers deep sea fishing trips to tourists, said, “Mahi-mahi have almost completely disappeared from Cayman waters. It is nothing like it used to be.”
He added, “Unlike in Jamaica, the blue marlin and other billfish are generally released in Cayman, because they are so valuable for the sport fishing industry.”
Photos and video published on the National Fisheries Authority (Jamaica) Facebook page on 7 March, titled ‘Success at Sea’, shows pictures of mahi-mahi, tuna, blue marlin and sailfish being hauled aboard boats by Jamaican fisherfolk.
“Our fisherfolks from Annotto Bay are reaping abundantly,” said Norman Dunn, member of Parliament for Jamaica’s South East St. Mary parish in a social media post on 29 Jan.
He added that the results were astounding.
“We have seen a dramatic increase in the sizes as well as the quantities of these catches,” he said. “This is remarkable, these fisherfolk have never been this happy.”
In an interview with Jamaica Information Service, reported in the Jamaica Gleaner, project manager Selena Ledgister explained that about 280 fisherfolk across seven fishing communities were being trained in pelagic fishing, “to enable them to go farther offshore to catch larger species of fish”.
She added that the new focus on pelagic fishing, referring to fishing in the open ocean, would help reduce the pressure on fish in the shallow waters of Jamaica, which she noted are in decline.
“The situation with the reef fish is that it is under extreme pressure from several sources,” she said.
The Jamaican government recently stated that, “Significant strides are being made in strengthening Jamaica’s fisheries industry under the ‘Promoting Community-Based Climate Resilience in the Fisheries Sector’ project.”
The project, which is partially funded through a US$4.85 million grant from the World Bank, aims to promote “sustainable fisheries management in targeted fishing communities”, the release from the Jamaica Information Service stated.
The chief executive officer of the National Fisheries Authority in Jamaica, Dr. Gavin Bellamy said, in regard to the pelagic fishery initiative in Jamaica, “Our efforts will meet or exceed those established by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife.”
He added, “The fishery will be based on small-scale long lines typically used by Eastern Caribbean fishers and the mainline will be no longer that 5 km in length. Jamaica does have a comprehensive catch monitoring programme and the fishermen are required to report catches.”
The Cayman Compass reached out to the team leaders of the Jamaican fishing project at the World Bank, John Bryant Collier and Natalia Magradze, and asked them how the project to target highly migratory species like marlin and sailfish was in alignment with the stated aim of “promoting sustainable fisheries management”.
We are awaiting a response.
Longline fishing, which in some cases involves using a line that is over 10 miles in length and baited with hundreds of hooks, has long been associated with significant issues of bycatch, including turtles, seabirds and pilot whales, and the use of commercial longlining equipment has periodically been banned in various locations around the world, including in Hawaii.
In a research paper produced by the University of the West Indies in 1995, entitled ‘Fisheries for large pelagics in Jamaica: a review and options for development’, the author Robin Mahon noted that there are responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for development of pelagic fisheries in Jamaica.
These include provisions in the Law of the Sea relating to the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.
According to Mahon, “participation in the fisheries for these species is expected to carry with it the responsibility to participate in management”, including:
- establishment of national conservation and management measures,
- quotas and catch limits where necessary,
- standards for responsible fishing,
- stock assessment, data collection and sharing,
- cooperation at the regional and international levels.
In 2024, the Cayman Islands Department of Environment embarked on a one-year project to map the movement of Caribbean reef sharks and blacktip sharks in Cayman waters with the use of ‘pop-off’ satellite archival tags.
“I am really concerned,” said Dr. Johanna Kohler, shark research coordinator at the Department of Environment, after hearing about the initiative to expand commercial longlining operations in Jamaica.
“The research project has shown us that the Caribbean reef sharks and the blacktips are travelling much further than we originally thought,” she said.
“That literally means that we are sharing our sharks with our neighbours.”
The scientist noted, “Caribbean reef sharks are the top predators in Cayman waters and therefore one the most important ecological species.”
She added, “It is likely the health of the coral reefs [in Cayman] will be impacted by these actions in Jamaica.”
In 2015, the Cayman Islands became the 10th nation to completely protect all shark species within national waters.
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