xlviii 



Tliirty- second Annual Report 



ENQUIRIES INTO COMPLAINTS OF DAMAGE TO BOATS OR 



GEAR. 



Particulars of complaints by fishermen of damage to their boats 

 or gear by other fishing vessels, and made to and dealt with by 

 the Board's ofiicers, will be found in Appendix K, No. 1 (p. 157). 

 Altogether, 57 complaints were received by the Board's ofiicers, which 

 number has not been exceeded since the year 1908, when the same 

 number was returned. As compared with 1912 there is an increase in 

 the number of complaints of no less than 25, but it must be observed 

 that this increase is more than accounted for by the number of com- 

 plaints of damage to cod nets in the Moray Firth, which were not 

 previously shown in the Retm^n. 



Since the advent of the cod net-fishing in the Moray Firth a con- 

 siderable amount of trouble has arisen through the operations of foreign 

 trawlers, and the principal ground for complaint in the Moray Firth 

 districts was the damage to, or loss of, cod nets, 29 cases of this nature 

 having been brought to the notice of the Board's officers during the 

 year. 



In a considerable proportion of these cases the offending vessels 

 were not observed or, if observed, were not identified, and it is possible 

 that some of the damage attributed to trawlers was caused by storms. 

 In other cases where evidence that damage was caused by a particular 

 trawler was available, the case was complicated by the fact that the 

 nets had been left unattended or were insufficiently marked or lighted. 

 It is probable that some of the damage was due to carelessness or 

 indifference on the part of the trawlers, but there is good reason to 

 believe that the cause of much of the damage was ignorance, and before 

 the opening of the 1914 fishing the Board took steps to remove this 

 cause as far as possible, and at the same time issued regulations for 

 the marking and lighting of the nets. 



Wherever possible the Board endeavoured to obtain compensa- 

 tion for damage to cod nets, but their powers in this respect are limited, 

 and, owing to the circumstances referred to above, little success 

 attended their efforts. 



The cases falling within Sec. 7 of the Sea Fisheries Amendment 

 Act, 1885, i.e. damage by British fishing vessels to other British fishing 

 vessels or their gear, numbered 21, as against 25 in 1912. Eleven of the 

 complaints were against trawlers, 7 against steam drifters, 2 against 

 sailing boats, and 1 against a motor boat. The amount of com- 

 pensation recovered through the officers was £70 Is., of which £66 18s. 

 represented damage by trawlers, while one or two cases were out- 

 standing at the close of the year. 



In addition to the cases referred to above the officers of the Board 

 investigated numerous claims for damage alleged to have been caused 

 by H.M. war vessels, and during the year sums amounting to at least 

 £676 were paid by the Admiralty. 



PROSECUTIONS FOR ILLEGAL TRAWLING. 



During 1913 the number of prosecutions for illegal trawling around 

 the Scottish coasts was 29, from which 27 convictions resulted, the 



