Tuesday 03 January 2023
The Committee for Economic Development is making Islanders aware that a ban on collecting ormers at night has been reinstated.
A ban was first introduced in 1933 as part of efforts to ensure local ormer stocks remained sustainable. However revisions to controls on other species in the 1990s, such as lady crabs and shrimp, resulted in legal changes that unintentionally removed the night-time ban on ormering.
More recently that has led to concerns about the sustainability of ormering stocks. Without a ban on night-time ormering, more ormers are collected overall as the number of ormering tides in a season is effectively doubled. Also, night-time ormering makes it much more challenging to carry out ormer inspections which are there to ensure undersized ormers are not taken, supporting the long-term sustainability of ormers in local waters. These were also reasons for the original 1933 ban on night-time ormering.
The next ormering season begins on 6th January 2023, and Sea Fisheries are reminding Islanders that no ormering should take place outside of daylight hours, meaning the first ormering tide on that day is 12.30pm (low tide).
For details on ormering guidelines and tides, please visit https://gov.gg/fishing.
