After two months of closure, the fishing for octopus in Rodrigues resumed yesterday. It seems that this year’s catches were not as good as the last opening, which caused the price to soar. However, the fishing commission has put in place more control. There has been a ban on those who do not hold a fisherman’s card. Supervisors at the landing stages issued small cards to all those who went fishing.
The order to register the catches on each marker was not totally respected. Some fishermen sold their catch for up to Rs 100 per half kilo. Disgruntled fishermen talk about the non-respect of the closure by some fishermen. Fishing was poor in Port Sud-Est, Parc Tortue and Port Mathurin, but in Petite Butte, buyers were satisfied with the opening. There is certainly an urgent need to fix the selling price of this cephalopod. Some say that the total catch is around 15 tons of octopus.
