Sea bream are under protection

Many tens of thousands of black bream breed on the Kingsmere rocks, a 10-square kilometre reef a few miles off Littlehampton, during April and May.

It is one of their largest known nesting areas in UK waters. The females lay their eggs in thousands of small nests dug by the male fish in the gravel sea bed.

From this weekend a fast fishery protection boat will be on standby to pounce on large trawlers which for several years have been persistently, and illegally, catching them, and bring them to court.

"When we spot them we will be out there so quickly they will not have time to haul up their nets and pretend they were not fishing," said David Harvey, chairman of the Sussex Sea Fisheries Committee.

They drag weighted gear over the reef, gouging and wrecking the nests, catching the male fish guarding them, scattering baby bream into the mouths of predators.

In the last 10 years, skippers of two trawlers, one from Jersey and one from Lowestoft, had been prosecuted nine times and paid fines and costs of nearly 23,000 for poaching the fish.

"Despite the extent of these penalties they are clearly not a deterrent," said Mr. Harvey.

In May last year they were caught pair trawling - dragging a heavy weighted net strung out 500 metres (1,600 feet) between them smashing into the fragile reef.

The maximum fine magistrates can impose is 5,000 for each offence. But sea fisheries officers at Shoreham-by-Sea, say the trawlers can usually sell a day's catch for 5,000.

Mr. Harvey said one pair of big trawlers could cause colossal destruction. "If the nests are left alone the baby fish grow rapidly and help provide good catches for commercial and sport fishing all along the Sussex coast."

The sea fisheries committee also wanted to protect the breeding fish from other fishermen who drag their nets just off the bottom, he added. "This way they may not wreck the nests but they still take considerable numbers of breeding fish."

Government figures show that fish and shellfish worth 15.6 million are caught by commercial fishermen in South East England annually, while recreational sea anglers resident in East and West Sussex alone spend some 15 million a year on their sport.

"These activities are vitally important to our coastal economies and we are determined to protect and develop them," Mr. Harvey added.