ASIAN tuna longliners calling at Cape Town to buy pilchards for bait face rising prices due to stock recruitment problems in the fishery cutting supplies.
Pilchard bait prices have already risen, partly fuelled by growing demand by longliners from Taiwan and China. However, the stocks off South Africa are at present unpredictable as fish have re-routed from swimming up the country’s west coast to moving along the south coast.
Now, the pilchard TAC is at its lowest for 15 years, although the quality of the large fish being caught is very high.
Many
