Green activists sink teeth into mission
Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd on Wednesday left Australia on a campaign targeting illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean, having successfully seen off Japanese whalers after a decade of harassment.
The conservationists said with Japan's annual hunt on hold after an International Court of Justice ruling, it will focus its summer campaign on halting the fishing of rare Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish, vowing to "track down the criminal profiteers".
Their lead ship, Bob Barker, left the Tasmanian port of Hobart, and a second ship, Sam Simon, will join it from New Zealand in the next week for the three-month mission.
"Our ships are once again preparing to take their place as the last line of defense to protect the precious marine life of Antarctica," Bob Barker skipper Peter Hammarstedt said before leaving.
"This year, we will track down the criminal profiteers who poach vulnerable toothfish, we will drive them out of their hunting grounds in the shadowlands of the Southern Ocean, and we will deliver them into the hands of justice."
Toothfish live in Antarctic waters at depths of 300 to 2,500 meters and are long-lived species, which means they are vulnerable to overfishing due to their slowness to mature.
Sea Shepherd said increased surveillance and patrolling of waters by authorities in Australia and New Zealand had improved the toothfish situation in some areas.
But illegal fishing, by poachers who often switch flags on their vessels, was continuing in what the group calls the "shadowlands" of the Southern Ocean, areas that are extremely remote and outside national jurisdictions.
Hammarstedt said toothfish are sold as Chilean sea bass - popular in high-end restaurants - and their numbers in the wild are rapidly falling.
"It sells primarily in the United States, Europe, Japan," he said. "There's an increasing market in China."
Sam Simon captain Sid Chakravarty said if boats are found, their gear will be confiscated and fish returned to the water.
"Sea Shepherd will also work with the relevant law enforcement agencies internationally to have these vessels arrested and impounded and the vessel owners held responsible for their operations," he said.
(China Daily 12/04/2014 page10)
