Fisherman petitioning for breeding crayfish to be released
A local fisherman whose video of a crayfish catch has gone viral has seen support jump for a petition to stop the fishing of breeding lobsters.
The original video showed Daniel Bourgaize catching his first crayfish, but then throwing it back when he discovered it was full of eggs.
The fisherman, who runs the YouTube channel Inglorious Fishing, was not expecting internet fame from hundreds of thousands of people when he uploaded the video to his channel.
‘I just uploaded my videos like I normally do and the response that I’ve had from Guernsey to France to the UK have been unbelievable, I really didn’t think it was going to blow up that big,’ he said.
Mr Bourgaize had an amazing reaction when he unexpectedly pulled the huge crayfish out of his pots.
The video of Mr Bourgaize on the Guernsey Press Facebook page reached more than 440,000 people, but the video on the Inglorious Fishing YouTube channel was been picked up by news outlets in France, one of which received more than 120,000 reactions to the link on Facebook in just two days.
Watch: The moment Daniel Bourgaize pulls up his first crayfish
‘I know a couple of French chefs who work over here and they texted me asking whether I realised it had blown up, but I really didn’t know,’ said Mr Bourgaize.
‘They sent me all the different links to loads of news outlets and I was just overwhelmed with how many people have watched it.’
He added that he had no idea what the articles were saying about him as it was all in French and he has not yet translated it.
Mr Bourgaize has been praised on social media for releasing the crayfish when he discovered the hundreds of eggs underneath its tail.
There is no law in Guernsey that requires fishermen to release breeding shellfish, so Mr Bourgaize has started a petition to do so.
‘I’ve had a fairly good response, some people have liked it, some people haven’t but that’s just the way it is. I just think it’s the right thing to do,’ he said.
‘If it’s a breeding lobster you’re only going to damage your own fishery by not chucking them back, so I just believe that anything you can visually see breeding you should throw back, but that is my opinion.’
He started the petition a month ago and has received nearly 400 signatures.
Most of which have been made since his video releasing the crayfish.
Mr Bourgaize said that in the year ahead, he hoped to catch another crayfish that he could this time take home this time.
Daniel's petition can be found here.
