Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Haynesley Benn.
Barbadians will not be feasting on the local sea egg delicacy this year!
That’s because the Sea Egg Closed Season has been extended for another year.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Haynesley Benn, today announced that the Cabinet at its meeting of September 25 , agreed to extend the closed season and approve the recommendation “ that the moratorium on the sea egg fishing season should be extended from October 2, 2008 until September 30, 2009.”
Reiterating his call for an end to the illegal poaching of sea eggs, Minister Benn noted that research conducted by the Fisheries Division, at selected sites across the island , last month, especially those where sea urchins were plentiful, revealed that populations continued to “fall dramatically; this year included.”
“In as much as we continue to have requests from fishermen and lovers of this Barbadian delicacy, we are concerned that if we allow harvesting we might well deplete the entire stock,” the Minister said.
Pointing out that such indiscriminate and illegal harvesting was one of the major concerns of the Fisheries Division at present, Senator Benn underlined: “Because of this practice , every successive year the sea egg population decreases. If only we can get persons to stop the illegal harvesting… this destroys the existing population and adversely affects the eggs’ ability to multiply.”
Minister Benn said his Ministry would in the near future be sending letters to the Royal Barbados Police Force and the Barbados Coast Guard to give notice of the extension of the closed season.
“I hope that they will step up their vigilance and try to reduce this poaching and allow the sea eggs to multiply so that Barbadians can once again enjoy this delicacy,” he concluded.