Coast Guard seizes boats engaged in bull trawling

The Coast Guard Ship C-420, while on coastal surveillance patrol, carried out a boarding operation on two fishing boats ‘Sagar Kusum’ and ‘Sagar Kusum-V’ which were engaged in illegal pair bull trawling, off the Dakshina Kannada coast.

The boats were found carrying out unauthorised pair bull trawling, which is banned as per Karnataka government guidelines.

The vessels were boarded and thoroughly investigated, and it was found that the boat documents were incomplete, registration and fishing licence was not valid and some crew members were not in possession of valid ID cards. The apprehended boats and crew were handed over to Coastal Security Police.

In pair bull trawling, two marginally big-sized boats tie the net and drag it for kilometres together to catch the entire shoal of fish. This was a bone of contention between the two fishing communities in the state and the government later banned it altogether.