KUALA SELANGOR: They can be stretched almost as long as a football field if desired and when used, these dragon traps will deplete fish stocks.
Though they have been banned for years, some fishermen still surreptitiously use them, hoping enforcers will not notice.
The Selangor Fisheries Department, however, proved that they had been watching, and in one fell swoop, a large team launched a crackdown and seized 720 dragon traps used by local fishermen.
The raid on Tuesday (Oct 25) took place in Bagan Tengkorak at the northern coastal edge of Selangor, near the border of Perak and 90km from Kuala Lumpur.
It took three vessels at sea and three vehicles on land, manned by 19 personnel, to corner the errant fishermen and seize the 720 dragon traps.
The 19 personnel included enforcers from the Fisheries Department, Maritime Enforcement Agency and the marine police.
Dragon traps, explained Selangor Fisheries director Noraisyah Abu Bakar, are collapsible designs that can be extended to tens of metres in length.
On top of being made of fine mesh nets that will trap even fish fingerlings, she said the total ban on its use was because it had many entry points, designed so that marine life could get in and cannot get out.
Even worse, inshore fishermen would use dragon traps within four nautical miles from shore to avoid strong currents that could wash the traps away.
This presents a disastrous problem because fish fingerlings living in shallow areas would inadvertently get caught in dragon traps.
"Sustainable fishery means we only use methods in which mature fish of harvestable weight will be caught for consumption.
"Dragon traps catch fish that are so small that none of us would want to eat them. If we keep catching small fish, there will someday be none left at sea," she said.
Noraisyah called on fishermen to understand that by using dragon traps, they are "breaking their own rice bowls" because they are causing fish populations in their zones to go down substantially with these traps.
A check on the internet, however, shows that dragon traps are easily bought in popular online shopping portals.
