Overview
- Gardacostas' patrol ship Mar de Galicia, operating off A Guarda on Saturday, removed 480 banned cacharros and 155 unmarked pots from the border waters.
- Officers found 84 kilograms of octopus, including 55 undersized animals, along with 5 kilograms of pouting, and they returned all of it to the sea under protocol.
- Many of the seized pots lacked identification, which blocks authorities from tying them to vessels, and the Consellería do Mar repeated its zero tolerance message toward poaching.
- Cacharros are containers octopus use as shelters, which make mass capture easy and can trap breeding females, so Galicia bans them even though Portugal allows them.
- This sweep follows a late‑February raid in the same area that pulled 523 cacharros, and officials report rising use of these devices as local fishers push for tighter checks to protect stocks and fair competition.