Dubai Municipality confiscates one tonne juvenile fish

Food inspectors with Dubai Municipality seized nearly one tonne of illegal fish being sold in the market contrary to size-limit regulations, senior officials said Monday. In a crackdown on the Dubai Fish Market in Deira conducted across two weeks, inspectors were on the hunt for juvenile fish of 14 varieties which did not meet mandatory size limits according to municipal regulations. Certain species of fish were banned under Ministerial Decision 16 in 2010 to help dwindling fish stocks to survive to reproductive age in order to maintain a healthy critical mass on coral reefs in the Gulf. On the first day of the campaign, municipal inspectors seized 186 kilograms of illegal undersized fish. The number of illegal fish confiscated after 15 days of inspection had dropped to nine kilograms, suggesting that the crackdown is working, the Municipality officials said. Khalid Mohammad Sharif, director of the municipal Food Control Department, said that 890 kilograms of illegal juvenile fish were seized at the market of a reported 300,000 kilograms of total fish products sold during the inspection period. Circular issued Sharif noted that commercial anglers and market sellers were aware of the limits imposed by the municipality via a circular issued throughout the fishing community that clearly indicated banned fish through pictures and slot limits. He said the circular "was distributed to all fishermen and merchants in the emirate of Dubai…signboards were installed in different places of the fish market." The Municipality issued penalties to violators and warned that "huge fines will be imposed" on those caught selling undersized fish in future. Laurence Vanneyre, senior project manager with Emirates Marine Environmental Group, told Gulf News that the crackdown is good news for fish stocks under pressure from overfishing in the Gulf. "This is a very good initiative," Vanneyre said yesterday. "A size restriction allows the fish population to reproduce and grow. Fisherman have to allow the populations to grow." Species native to waters off Dubai shores such as the orange spotted grouper, otherwise known as hammour in UAE, is under heavy pressure from fishing. Young hammour are vulnerable and needed for future fish stocks, she said.