Israel Bans Fishing in Sea of Galilee

(May 13) -- The fishermen of the Sea of Galilee play a central role in the Bible. But soon a new sign is set to go up on the shores where Jesus preached to his disciples: No Fishing Allowed.

Citing perilously low levels of fish, Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced a two-year fishing ban in the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake, starting this weekend.

The ban will extend to parts of the Jordan River, which both feeds into and flows from the Sea of Galilee on its now much diminished and polluted course to the Dead Sea.

Yuval Nadel, Getty Images

Israel's government has introduced a two-year fishing ban in the Sea of Galilee due to concerns about overfishing.

"Data collected by my ministry's Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture shows that the number of fish in the lake have been dropping by tens of percentage points every year for the last decade, particularly in the past two years, and is now at a critical level," Shalom Simhon, Israel's agriculture minister, wrote in a letter to the country's minister of finance.

Israeli officials say that years of overfishing have made the ban necessary. Stocks of St. Peter's fish, for instance, have fallen markedly over the past few years. In 2005, 300 tons of St. Peter's -- better known as tilapia -- were caught in the lake. Last year only 8 tons were brought in, the BBC reported.

The Sea of Galilee features prominently in the New Testament of the Bible. It was there that Jesus was said to have walked on water and performed the miracle of feeding 5,000 people with just two of the lake's fish.

Seventy registered fishing boats currently operate in the lake, and their operators are not happy about the ban.

"This will just ruin us. ... The entire country is going to watch how the 40 families who depend for their livelihood on these boats will lose everything we've got," Eitan Abo, a local fisherman, told Haaretz newspaper. "What are we going to do now, start stealing? Are they going to give us any compensation? I live from the lake; I don't know anything else."

At a cabinet meeting in April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the question of compensation. "We will support the fishermen and make sure the lake is restocked with fish," he said.