The intense heat recorded during the spring is putting seafarers in jeopardy because it affects productivity and their family finances, said Nicolás Rivera Domínguez, president of the Federation of Fishermen, Transporters, and Sailors of Veracruz.
He explained that overheating seawater impacts fish, which prefer to seek deeper, cooler waters, as the warm water affects them.
This makes fishing difficult for fishermen because they have to swim at greater depths, which is extremely dangerous.
“With the excessive temperatures, fishing is complicated for us and we’re running short on produce. There’s been a bit of mackerel and horse mackerel, but sales are a little low, and that’s how we’ll have to deal with the intense heat.
“When it’s really hot, the mackerel and horse mackerel catches go down, but we can’t spend that much time in the sun because our defenses are weakened,” said Rivera Domínguez.
He emphasized that this situation affects his family’s economy because their income is minimal and they have to reinvest in fuel and fishing materials.
“Sales are down. Now we’re waiting for the rains to come, to see if we can find better-priced species. Right now, the cheapest species for the consumer are horse mackerel and horse mackerel: we get paid 25 pesos per kilo wholesale, and at the fish market, they sell them for 40 pesos per kilo. And when there’s no sales, they want to pay us less for the product,” the fisherman emphasized.
“The truth is, it doesn’t work for us; We hope it rains a little bit to cool things down and bring in higher-quality species, such as snapper and sea bream, and we hope things improve from this week to the next,” concluded Rivera Domínguez.
Source: imagendeveracruz
