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Traditionally fishing has been the main blood-stream of the economy and the islanders'
principal source of income. Even today it still employs half the Maldivian workforce. The
fishing Dhoani are privately owned and usually keep a crew of eight or so, although in the
north they tend to carry more. |
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All Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus
Pelamis) and Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus Albacares) are caught by artisanal
fishermen, who fish daily around the vicinity of their home islands in the Maldivian
archipelago consisting more than 2000 islands of which around 202 are inhabited.
Furthermore there are smaller catches of Frigate Tuna (Anxis Thagard) and from
smaller vessels called "Dhoani" ranging 5 - 12m LOA in size and driven by 20 -
60hp engines or sail.
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The method used by Maldivian
fishermen is referred to as the "Pole and
Line" method. This consists of a bamboo or
plastic construction pole, 10 to 15 feet in length, with a line and a feathered barbless
hook attached to the smaller end of the pole capable of handling a fish weighing below
50lbs. |
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At the
start of a fishing day the fishermen will take their Dhoani out in search of live bait such
as small scads, silver side and sardine. The larger size vessels possessing the bait hold
that has a fresh seawater circulating system enabling the bait to be kept alive, will
obtain about 50lb of bait. Once this is completed the Dhoani will head out to the open sea
in search of tuna schools. These are mostly surface schools that are either feeding or are
in search of food. When these schools of tuna are sighted the Dhoani crew will begin to
throwing hand full of bait either into or around the school of fish. This will bring the
fish close to the Dhoani at which time the fisher crew consisting of about six at a time
will place their line attached to the pole in the water. Due to the frenzied feeding state
of the school they begin to bite at any small object in the water and thus get hooked and
hauled onto the deck of the Dhoani, automatically unhooking itself as the hook is barbless.
This process will continue untill either the school stops biting or moves to another area. |
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Favorable conditions prevailing, the
Dhoani will be able to load up to its maximum in one stop or otherwise will continue its
search for other schools of fish. The large vessels full capacity is about 4 MT, where the
fish weight is about 2 - 10 kgs. The majority of the small sized yellow fin tuna run with
the skipjack. The larger yellow fin weighing 10kgs and over are not caught using the pole
and line method due to the incapability of handling the weight, thus are caught by the
trolling method or bottom fishing method which consists of less than 10% of the total
catch in the Republic of Maldives. |
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After a fishing Dhoani is full or they
have reached the point of time that will, permit the Dhoani enough day light to deliver its
catch, it will go to one of the freezer vessels or collector vessels to deliver it's
catch. These vessels are located throughout the Maldives and are entities that are owned
and operated by the "Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company Limited (MIFCO)",
which is a wholly government owned entity. |
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After a period of time the collection
fleet will purchase upto over 350 MT of fish, all of which will be frozen on the freezer
vessels of the collection fleet and placed in the vessels cold storage untill the fleet
stores are upto an approximate maximum of 5,000 MT. Once this has been accomplished the
fish is either exported as Frozen Tuna or taken to the sole Tuna processing plant at
"Felivaru island". |
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Although the operation in
"Felivaru island" is capable of obtaining a portion of its own raw fish
requirements the collection fleet will supplement approximately one third of Felivaru
requirements throughout the year. |
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All the fish produced in the Maldives
through-out the year are produced by local artisanal fishermen averaging approximately 230
days fishing an the deficit is due to local culture, repairs to Dhoani, and weather
conditions. |
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The Maldives do NOT import any of
it's tuna requirements as these requirements are full-filled locally. This process to
does NOT permit net fishing except for the purpose of obtaining live bait required by the
Pole and Line fleet. |
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There are over 9,000 registered
Dhoani in the Maldives of which only about 3,200 Dhoani are actively engaged in tuna
fishing. Again the Dhoani are scattered throughout the Republic and will deliver it's
catches to MIFCO's collection vessels in their area. MIFCO has approximately 22 areas of
collection, excluding Felivaru (the tuna cannery), and on a good day 290 to 360 Dhoani
will be delivering within a days time of which the total will be upto 380 MT. The total
number of Dhoani is higher than the one delivering daily; and the rest of the fleet that
is not delivering to MIFCO's collection fleet will be using their catch for local
consumption or for the production of locally dried, salted and/or smoked tuna. |
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The tuna industry in the Maldives is
a day fisheries and it would not benefit to state the name of vessels as these do not
normally have a name but possess only a registration number of which a record is kept by
the Ministry of Fisheries. The date of the time of catch is within a 60 day period and the
area would be the 22 areas in the Maldivian archipelago no more than 40 miles from a major
fishing island. |
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Furthermore tuna schools in the
Maldives are not associated in anyway with any marine mammal such as Dolphins or Whales
and there has been no record ever of Dolphin mortality due to tuna fishing. The only
Dolphin associated tuna catch known to us is produced in the Eastern Tropical Pacific and
in most cases are yellow fin tuna in the open sea. |
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