Catching Fish Poachers in the Southern Ocean

Catching Fish Poachers in the Southern Ocean Correspondent: This is what happened when the French Navy spotted a Portuguese vessel fishing inside the economic zone surrounding Crozet island. Alistair: On a stand of 5 or 7 week these poachers might expect to take anything from 500 to 800 tons to have met several million dollars worth of fish for a month fishing which means that you can pay of a boat a week or two. Correspondent: The skipper of this boat have more than a million dollars worth of Tooth Fish on board. The fish was confiscated and he was fined. Other groups have been active trying to expose the pirates. When the green peace vessel Arctic Sunrise cited an unmarked fishing inside the zone surrounding the French from whaling islands, it became the start of 3,000 miles chase across the Southern mission Denise Boyd was Green Peace’s expedition leader on that voyage. Denise Boyd (Greenpeace International): It’s quite clearly doubting in illegal fishing that took at least given that large number of seagulls that we could sea and we couldn’t see any markings on it to identify it but you can’t see anybody else because perfectly 1 minute after we spotted each other they turned to the east and increased speed and shipped of and that is start of a chase and then they change courses various times. During daylight the next day we sent some inflatable boats there is a peace commission all over our inflatable crews from that met with the entire crew have just in about so you that you couldn’t see their faces. All the identifying features of the ship had been blacked out so you can’t see the sign you can’t see the name. The crew threw rocks towards the crew of the inflatable crews. They have no intention of boarding their vessel. Correspondent: Undeterred by the rock throwing incident the arctic samurais launched their helicopter to try to discover the pirate vessel’s name. When the green peace inflatable went alongside to ask the boats name they were told it was the Isla Gamblain. The crew checked with Alistair Graham by sending a picture of the unmarked vessel back on the internet. The digital picture which we can send you and perhaps we can get some identification some time soon, the measurements have been able to take from here would indicate 55 metes long. Alistair: Here is the first photograph then unidentified received by us from Greenpeace on the third of march and we were able to assist in identification of this vessel by comparing boats involved in poaching. We focused we already had on file and here is the boat on file from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority arrested for poaching in Australian waters the previous year. It took us about 2 days to agree that we had identified this Salvora. Correspondent: Records reveal that the Salvora was registered and Belize and operated through a chain of South American Companies by – in Spain. Despite heavy seas the pirate vessel was still prepared to make a run for it. Green peace continued to chase the 7 days revealing the identity of the boat then on the 7th day the vessel uncovered its number and name showing it was indeed the Salvora registered in Belize. There was then a strange incident. The arctic sunrise received a radio message purporting to come from a legal vessel fishing inside the French Economic Zone. The legal boat claim they have cited a pirate. With Arctic Sunrise investigate. The radio message was traced back to the captain of the Salvora only a few hundred meters away. He was trying to divert them from the chase. In part 2 how the Salvora and its pirate catch finally— All vessels legal like this one or illegal catch tooth fish by means of a system called long lining. It’s a line containing 10 of thousands of hooks that can stretch as far as 5 nautical miles behind the boat. These hooks also snare birds particularly albatross who dive for the bait. Now because of a number of tooth fish pirates some 5 species of albatross are at risk. Alistair: That same bait is very attractive food for albatrosses. They track into the boats they see their long lining they dive on the hooks and once they’re caught on the hook they get drag down and drown and killed. When it comes to the breeding season these birds will be working hard to feed their chicks. They look for food close to these islands just where these boats are fishing and we find far too many so many that unless something is done these species will become extinct.