A 50,000 zloty grant to provide volunteer fish guards with radio-telephones, rubber boots and insulated underwear will make life tougher for Polish salmon poachers.
Green Federation ‘Gaja’ (GFG) (Federacja Zielonych ‘Gaja’), will provide equipment for Volunteer Fish Guards (VFG) to strengthen protection of the declining, and already low, wild salmon populations in the Polish rivers. In recent years, this migratory fish species has become an easy poaching target, especially during the spawning season.
It is evident, that the main predator of salmon in Polish rivers is human activity. The construction of small hydropower plants, pollution of rivers, and poaching are the main examples. Under the auspices of the project, “Social protection of fish and water ecosystems”, funded by the Oak Foundation, GFG plans to dedicate 50,000 zloty (€12,000) to equip the Volunteer Fish Guards with much needed gear to carry out protection efforts against salmon poachers. Jakub Szumin, head of Green Federation ‘Gaja’, informs that at the beginning of the decade the main reason for salmon poaching was poverty. Now the prevailing motive is “purely financial”, where illegally caught salmon usually finds its way to the black market.
Salmon management in Polish Rivers is fragmented at best. Dr. Piotr Dẹbowski, the Director of the Migratory Fish Departament at The Institute of Inland Fisheries in Poland, claims that there is no systematic method to assess the salmon populations in the various rivers and therefore no accurate data is available on the species. Some of the methods previously utilised to assess the stocks include counting salmon smolts and returning spawners. Camera counters have also been utilised, but only one river in Slupsk has the system running.
Dẹbowski, also a member of the ICES salmon working group, emphasized that in addition to a lack of a standaridized method of counting the salmon populations there is no process in place to estimate the rate of poaching, which according to the Volunteer Fish Guards is very high and very destructive for the river ecosystems. According to some Polish anglers, salmon re-stocking has become a big business, therefore detection and prevention of poaching has often been counter-productive.
Today in the Western Pomerania Region, the Volunteer Fish Guards (VFG) include 70 to 100 people. These individuals are mostly anglers and fishermen operating on a volunteer basis supporting the professional guards, the National Fisheries Guards (NFG).
It is important to note that the Volunteer Fish Guards do not have the power to impose penalties, and neither can they apply the so –called “direct coercion”, meaning they cannot stop or fine any poachers. The success of the anti-poaching efforts therefore depends on the collaboration between the Volunteer Fish Guards, and the National Fisheries Guards who have legal mandates and can impose penalties on those who break the law.
The Oak Foundation funding comes in at a good time. Until now, Green Federation ‘Gaja’ has only been able to help with gasoline costs for car patrols of the rivers, but with the new funding it has been able to support the purchase of 30 complete sets of VFG uniforms including 40 units of radio-telephone equipment for in-field communication. The new gear for the VFG includes waterproof boots, headlamps, night vision binoculars, and insulated clothing and undergarments to protect from hypothermia since patrols are particularly active during spawning in November months when the temperature drops below 0 Celsius at night.