New season's crayfish catch allocation is up almost 60% A projected small increase in overall West Coast rock lobster (kreef) stocks f...
New season's crayfish catch allocation is up almost 60%
- A projected small increase in overall West Coast rock lobster (kreef) stocks for the second consecutive year has allowed a hike in the new season's catch allocations.
- The total allowable catch is up nearly 60%.
- But poaching and illegal sales of kreef remain very high.
- Government has been urged to introduce additional measures to combat this.
The government has announced a substantial increase in the total allowable catch (TAC) for West Coast rock lobster for the upcoming 2025/6 season - up more than 58% from 505 tons to 800 tons.
The decision has been welcomed by a fishing community that has endured years of lean legal catches of kreef, as it's popularly known.
But there is also unhappiness with some elements of this increased allocation - notably the short, four-month fishing season - and Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Dr Dion George may still be called on to mediate these concerns.
Kreef ranks as the third most important catch in the country's R10-billion-plus fishing industry, after hake and small pelagics (sardines and anchovies). Valued at more than R500-million annually, it provides some 4,300 sea- and land-based jobs, especially for impoverished communities along the West Coast.
The hefty increase in the kreef TAC for the new season that starts on 15 November is the most substantial change, in proportional terms, in the past 15 years, during which TACs have mostly been steadily reduced.
Overall, however, kreef stocks remain perilously low and are currently estimated at just 1.4% of the estimated pristine stock abundance in 1910.
This is why scientific advice to the fisheries department stresses that a curtailed fishing season is necessary both for biological reasons relating to the kreef moult and to help reduce opportunities for poaching that is still rampant.
According to some estimates, the illegal kreef trade is at least double the annual TAC.
Plummeting stocks
Commercial kreef catches peaked in the early 1950s when annual catches were as high as 18,000 tons. But by 1970 the stock had plummeted and a further general decline has continued since then.
The historical low point came in 2023, when the overall stock was estimated at just 1.1% of pristine biomass (the total weight of the entire kreef stock).
Any fishery is considered "collapsed" when it's been fished down to less than 20% of pristine biomass.
While there has been a marginal improvement since 2023, DFFE's 2015 Status of the South African Marine Fisheries Resources report summarises the kreef resource as "considered to be heavily depleted, with fishing pressure continuing to be heavy and likely to result in a further decline in the status".
Last year, the legal landed catch was just 391 tons - only 85% of the approved 460-ton TAC.
Poaching and illegal fishing not only severely hamper efforts to restore stocks of this sought- after species to sustainable harvesting and biologically viable levels, but also make the determination of an accurate assessment of the current stock significantly more difficult.
For management purposes, the kreef fishery is divided into five sectors: commercial offshore and small-scale offshore (both deep water operations using traps), commercial nearshore and small-scale nearshore (hoop-nets in shallow water), and recreational catches.
Bound by constitutional and legislative imperatives that were confirmed by a key 2018 Western Cape High Court judgment, George and his Department have the unenviable task of setting a kreef TAC that balances two strongly competing interests: creating economic opportunities for the industry - and particularly for the many small-scale fishers in coastal communities whose traditional livelihoods are closely bound to kreef, on one hand - and promoting the ecological recovery of the desperately depleted resource on the other.
In terms of the 2018 court ruling, any TAC that is approved must not compromise efforts to rebuild the overall kreef stock to agreed sustainable growth levels.
Scientists
Each year, TAC proposals are calculated by a Rock Lobster Scientific Working Group that uses updated information derived from monitoring data and formulae pre-agreed by scientists, managers and others. Such "best estimate" projections and recommendations are then usually (but not always) adopted by the fisheries department.
The 2025/26 TAC was based on recommendations from a working group chaired by the department's specialist scientist in crustacean research, Dr Lutz Auerswald.
The group faced some data shortcomings when making stock assessment calculations, partly because of the department's budget constraints. Nevertheless, it determined that the data available was sufficiently robust to confirm a second consecutive small annual improvement in the status of the kreef stock in most of the five so-called "Super-Areas" -- management blocks along the coast into which the fishery is divided -- and that this improvement could sustain the proposed increase in the TAC.
"The 2024 assessment, for the first time in over ten years, [had] indicated resource recovery for most Super-Areas and consequently also for the resource as a whole.
"According to the 2025 assessment, this positive trend continues," the group reported.
The scientists acknowledged specific concern about one of their recommendations (all accepted by the department): the short four-month fishing window. But it argued that this was essential. "The necessity for effort limitation to reduce poaching and the protection of this resource is emphasised."
The group also warned about the need to tackle poaching: "It is crucial to remain aware of how severely depleted this resource is and to prioritise its recovery, despite ongoing socio- economic pressures ... Urgent attention should be given to implementing additional approaches to further reduce the extent of poaching and to improve compliance."
Reactions
Shamera Daniels, chairperson of the West Coast Rock Lobster Association that represents more than half of all commercial kreef fishing rights holders, said members were "very excited" by the higher allocation for the coming season.
"There have been lots of sacrifices by the entire industry over a long period, and the increased TAC shows that those sacrifices have now paid off," she said.
The Masifundise Development Trust, an independent trust that supports small-scale fishing communities, also welcomed the increased TAC which it described as "an important gain for small-scale fishers and their cooperatives in the Western Cape and Northern Cape, where rock lobster represents a key source of income as one of the few high-value species present in the small-scale fishers' basket [of species they are allowed to catch]".
But Programme Manager Carmen Mannarino noted that the commercial sector of the industry was getting the biggest increase and benefitting the most from the new allocations.
"Given the fact that small-scale fishers have very little else that is given to them and are facing real funding challenges to make their cooperatives functional, they should have been given a bigger piece of the cake," she argued.
Arniston-based Rovina Europa, a committee member of Coastal Links South Africa (a mass- based community organisation established in 2003 as a vehicle for small-scale fishers to secure livelihoods and overall human rights), has mixed feelings about the increased TAC.
"On the one hand we're very happy about it, but on the other we're very unhappy because there are a lot of challenges we need to overcome," she said.
These included the short fishing season - "It will be very difficult to catch the increased TAC in that time" - and teething problems with the new small-scale fisheries policy based on co- operative fishing that was introduced two years ago.
How the TAC will be shared
The 800-ton 2025/2026 kreef Total Allowable Catch (TAC) will be shared in the same proportions as previously:
- Commercial Offshore: 400 tons (50%)
- Commercial Nearshore: 136 tons (17%)
- Small Scale Nearshore: 136 tons (17%)
- Small Scale Offshore: 104 tons (13%)
- Recreational: 24 tons (<1%)
The recreational kreef fishing season remains capped at 12 days, with dates to be confirmed.
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