Next Sunday, May 18th, a group of concerned locals will host a public meeting under the banner of Save Our Sprat Bantry Bay.
The meeting will be held at the West Lodge Hotel, Bantry at 2pm.
The group wants to draw attention to the annual fishing of sprat in the bay and in other areas along the coast.
Sprat are a tiny fish, but an important food source for larger fish, sea birds, seals, dolphins and whales.
They come into the bay to spawn at the beginning of October and they are fished, mainly by large pair trawlers.
The group claims that the sprat are being overfished in their tonnes by these Irish trawlers and if this continues, the species will be wiped out and the bay will become lifeless waters.
The sprat are sold as fishmeal to fish farms and it takes roughly 3-5kg of fishmeal to produce 1kg of farmed salmon food.
The group will have a panel of speakers who will share their evidence and stories from Bantry and from other bays.
There will be time for discussion and the group welcome all opinions on this critical issue.
They are calling on the government to ban all fishing of sprat in inshore coastal waters, ahead of another season beginning in October.
This meeting is the first step from the Bantry Bay locals, and they are hoping to join forces with other affected bays such as those in nearby Kenmare.
A petition on Change.org, calling for the ban, has already received over 1,200 signatures.
In 2024, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine held a public consultation to invite views on a change of policy in relation to this issue.
Over 5,500 submissions were received, highlighting the public interest on the matter.
The consultation closed in April 2024 and more than a full year later, nothing at all has happened.
