With the catch of fish in the Arabian Gulf already declining, the current heat wave has further limited the marine harvest because local fishermen here are unwilling to venture far out on the open sea due to the high temperatures. The Qatif Fish Resources Research Center, which oversees the fishing sector in the Eastern Province and monitors the fish catch particularly during summer season, anticipates that because of the heat wave the fish harvest this summer will be lower than at the same time last year. “The catch will be lower this year because many local traditional fishermen are not going out to fish,” an official of the center said. “The situation, however, is not so serious that it will cause a shortage of fish in the market,” he added. He said commercial fishing companies have remained active in the Arabian Gulf despite the heat wave. “It is the small fishermen who are more affected, thereby creating a shortage in local fish markets and causing a slight increase in prices,” he said. The center is now preparing for the six-month shrimping season, which starts in August. This is the time of year when the government lifts the ban allowing local fishermen to harvest shrimps in designated areas in the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. Catching shrimps is prohibited for half of the year, starting in February, to give juvenile shrimps time to mature. The peak shrimp harvest is usually during the month of September onwards when the jumbo variety is available. During the shrimp season, prices are usually reduced from more than SR30 per kilo to about SR20 per kilo. The Kingdom harvests about 3,000 metric tons of shrimps during the shrimping season. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates the Kingdom's annual marine fish production to be 49,000 metric tons with 9,000 metric tons of crustaceans, including the 3,000 metric tons of shrimps. These figures exclude aquaculture production.
