PORT LOKO DISTRICT, Sierra Leone — At 5 a.m., as the horizon brightens and waves start to subside, more than a dozen wooden canoes along the shoreline between the settlements of Mahera Beach and Banda in northern Sierra Leone set off into the ocean. Each canoe casts a net, one end tied to a pole on the beach, and traces a semicircle as it progresses into the water. Weights attached to the net fall to the ocean floor, trapping fish on the beach side. Once the semicircle is complete, the net’s other end is dragged to shore. Two groups of four fishers then take hold of each end and begin pulling the net out of the water. After three hours of intense work, the fishers haul the net onto the beach. It contains a few crabs, shrimps and hundreds of thrashing baby fish. This fishing method, called beach seining, is banned in Sierra Leone due to its lack of selectivity and tendency to bring in excessive catches of juvenile fish, which aggregate in shallow coastal waters before reaching maturity and migrating to the open sea. Yet it’s becoming increasingly popular among local fishers. “You just cast the net and after some time, you have fish,” said Foday Kamara, a 26-year-old owner of one of the nets on the beach. A Sierra Leonean fisher. Image by Josef Skrdlik for Mongabay. Kamara, who’s been a fisher since his early teens, also owns a drift net to catch adult bonga shad (Ethmalosa fimbriata)…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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