The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Hurricane Irma has dealt a "big blow" to the crawfish season, the Bahamas Commercial Fishers Alliance's (BCFA) president warning of a "very tough Christmas" if the industry cannot recover.

"Hurricane Irma dealt a bit of a blow to us," said Adrian LaRoda. "Quite frankly, we can only hope we can do our our best to recover before Christmas. If we get any more bad whether before then we could be in trouble."

Mr LaRoda said Irma's passage came just weeks into the 2017-2018 crawfish season. "That was a big blow at the beginning of the season," he reiterated. We can only hope we can see some turnaround before Christmas.

"If not it will be a very tough Christmas. This is the nature of business; you have to deal with the weather, which we can't obviously control. Across the country fishermen had to cut their trips short. Even though the storm has passed, conditions are still not really favourbale for harvesting. It will take a while for seas to calm down and the waters clear.

"I don't see anything happening in September, and we're probably looking at mid-October before guys get back into the swing of things. If we don't get a break, it's a rough Christmas."

Still, Mr LaRoda said it was not all 'gloom and doom'. "We're still going to be optimistic about things, but even if this season proves to be a loss, as long as we keep poaching under control next season should be very good," he added.

Mr LaRoda said an assessment was still being done to determine Hurricane Irma's impact on the Bahamian fishing fleet.

"We are still doing an assessment. There will be loss of assets," he said. "Right now it's on a small scale. In Ragged Island and Inagua, there will be a loss of assets, but there have been no reports of major losses for large vessels.

"We have received no reports out of Long Island, Exuma nor Andros of any major loss. We don't know about Bimini yet, but to date I haven't heard anything."

Mr LaRoda said Bahamian fishermen were getting better at protecting their assets, having experienced Hurricanes Joaquin and Matthew in prior years before Hurricane Irma.