Update On Sea Shepherd's Operation Icefish and NJ's Shark Fin Bill

Hello everyone. Things have been pretty quiet lately hence I have not done a blog in a while. I've got some ideas of things to do here in-between news blogs and what not. Soooo Stay tuned for that. For now though let me catch you all up on some things that have developed just over the last week or so.

 On Monday, the New Jersey State Senate passed the bill that will see the banning of the sale, possession, and trade of shark fins in the state. As mentioned in an earlier blog this bill does have a couple exceptions to help protect both recreational and commercial fishermen. If a fisherman catches a shark and removes it's fins on dry land the fisherman is allowed to posses those fins, but he or she would not be able to trade or sell them. The fins of dogfish (both smooth and spiny) are exempt from this bill which means commercial fishermen will still be able to sell those sharks to Europe and the fins to Asia. The bill will now move to the New Jersey House of Representatives. So I'd like to say a big thank you to the New Jersey Senate for passing this bill. While it does not put an end to the sale of fins, it does act to make it harder for people to utilize the fins of larger species such as mako and thresher that continue to feel more and more pressure from overfishing.

On the other side of the world, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society continues to tail the icefish poaching vessel "Thunder". The two ships are now approaching the Gulf of Guinea, an area notorious for piracy. Sea Shepherd will continue to pursue the poachers into these vessels and have prepared the Bob Barker with anti boarding spikes that are now jutting out from the ship. The two ships continue to slowly inch North as the poachers continue to try and outlast the larger and better supplied in fuel and food, conservation vessel. Elsewhere, the efforts of New Zealand and Sea Shepherd may soon be rewarded. Currently the poaching vessel "Kunlun" is being detained in Thailand as the government has agreed to assist in New Zealand and Australia's request to bring these ships to justice! In hopes of defending themselves the crew of the Kunlun had resorted to calling their catch grouper and not toothfish. Needless to say that that did not get the fishermen anywhere. Members of the Spanish crime syndicate Vidal Armadores have arrived at the scene and are trying to get their boat released as Thailand does not have any domestic fishing laws (will hopefully begin enforcement in June). So the ship is being held on two basis. One, the fishermen claiming the fish is something that they are not is a crime. Two, the ship did not reach port with the name Kunlun and it was not flying the flag it was originally seen flying, but the flag of Indonesia, and had a different name, the "Tiachan". This facade did not fool authorities though as authorities were told by Indonesia that no such ship was registered there. So Thailand can detain the ship as a stateless ship.

With that being said, I hope that Thailand will force the surrender of the ship's catch, and while I don't think they will be able to detain the ship for too long, I would love to see the entire crew arrested. In Spain, the Spanish government have recently conducted raids on the Vidal Armadores so it does seem like between that, the situation in Thailand, and the one on the high seas, that the pressure is mounting quickly on this syndicate and I can only hope that Interpol and Spain can get this all under control!   

Wow! I don't think I've ever had to do this before! If you look I have crossed out the entire last paragraph... Here's why. Just a few minutes ago Sea Shepherd founder, Captain Paul Watson reported that the Kunlun has offloaded their catch, though the fate of it is unknown at this time. The ship is going to be escorted out of Thai waters and released. No fines, no arrests. They are being let go despite all the evidence in the world that they are poachers. It sounds like the Vidal Armadores has thrown enough money around to get their ship and their men out of Thailand with nothing more than a "Don't come back" notice. Also reported is that the Kunlun arrived in port with zero nets or other fishing gear. Two months ago, New Zealand authorities photographed the illegal fishing equipment on the Kunlun. Chances are, the crew of the ship dumped the net somewhere in the ocean which means that there is probably a massive (estimated up to 100kilometers (62 miles) in length) net is floating aimlessly killing an untold number of fish and other marine animals. Thailand has for whatever reason failed to apprehend these criminals and once again I'd like to say that there is egg on the face of Australia for not arresting these criminals when they were illegally fishing in Australian waters.

The Fight to Save New Jersey's Sharks Heats Up

Greetings everyone. I hope all is well as always! Today's blog is going to be about a New Jersey Senate Economic Growth Committee meeting that took place on Thursday, February 12th, 2015. I was fortunate enough to attend this meeting so I naturally do have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this meeting. Attending the meeting were representatives from the Shark Research Institute, Jenkinson's Aquarium, Born Free USA, The Humane Society USA, The Humane Society International, the Sierra Club, and Garden State Seafood. The bill was proposed by senator Lesniak Before getting into all of that though I will quickly go over the proposed bill (S. 2057).

The bill is largely modeled off the bills that have been passed by 9 states that outlaws the sale and possession of shark fins. What that means is pretty self explanatory. In the states where these laws exist, including New York and California, There are a couple exceptions that the New Jersey bill would contain. The first exception is that "possession"  would not include fins that were taken from a legally landed shark. The fins would not be allowed to be sold, but a fisherman would not be in trouble for possessing shark fins that he obtained by catching a shark. Second, the bill would not include smooth or spiny dogfish, two species of small shark that have seen their populations increase a great deal off of New Jersey. The possession exception gives both commercial and recreational fisherman free ability to continue to fish for sharks, but bars them from profiting on the animal's fins. The second exception is largely for commercial fisheries who ship dogfish meat to Europe to be used in fish and chips and the fins to Asian markets.To sum it up, this bill would be another step in protecting the vast majority of sharks that come by New Jersey throughout the year.

Without the ability to sell the fins, the overall value of a shark plummets. The value of a shark's fins far outweighs the value of it's meat. To top it off, in New Jersey, shortfin mako and thresher are the only two species that are caught for their meat at all (not including the dogfish). So out of the many species that frequents these waters, two are actually caught for meat. The rest, for fins. Competitors of this bill claim that the outlawing of the sale of fins would cause the global value of fins to rise. The mentality of if we don't do it, someone else will was also a claim. Another claim was that this bill would place an economic burden on the state's fisheries. All of these claims I believe to be false. First off, globally, the value of shark fins is in serious question. More and more places are banning shark fin products, airlines are starting not to ship them, and even Hong Kong (Shark fin capital of the world) has banned the serving of shark fin at all government functions. In addition, hotel chains, including those in China have started to stop serving the soup as well. I find it hard to believe that a falling demand would change because New Jersey stopped selling fins.

The mentality of if we don't do it, someone else will is virtually childish. By that same logic you could say "we should rob a bank cause if we don't, someone else will!". Give me a break. This is the type of attitude that will achieve nothing. That excuse has been used time and time again throughout history by these same people. It's really a lame excuse considering how major (minor) or an issue this is. Why did I put minor in parenthesis? Well as I mentioned a claim is that this bill would put a serious burden on the commercial fishing industry in the state. This is false for two reasons. First off... 9 other states (8 of which are coastal states which rely on fishing) have passed similar bills and have felt minimal to no economic impacts as a result of these bills passing. Second of all a virtually microscopic number of the total catch for the year is made up of fins. Hardly a number to start throwing red flags at and fearing a complete commercial collapse. I mean the meat from countless other species easily outweighs fins and overall will be more valuable than the fins by the time all is said and done for the year I would think.

Really what myself and countless others are asking is for the commercial fishing industry of New Jersey to give sharks a little bit of help. Throw them a bone sort to speak. These animals are so important to that industry that they realistically should be on the front lines fighting to save them. In New Jersey, the dogfish situation is a bit different than it is in other places. Around here, there is a very large and increasing population of these animals. My belief is that the exploding population is the result of a sharply decreasing population of large sharks. Do I have issue with the dogfish exception? Right now not so much. The dogfish issue is one that should be fought when the time is right, but right now the time is right to try and cut the head off the shark fin beast in NJ. Both thresher and shortfin mako sharks are listed as "Vulnerable" on the IUCN's Red List with a decreasing population trend. In addition, they are the most sought after shark in the state. That is extremely alarming and should be alarming to the commercial fishermen who think they have a dogfish problem now. Sure, the meat of thresher and mako may fetch more than dogfish meat, but at the end of the day, it's the sale of the fins that really makes the catch worth it for the fishermen.

Obviously I am in full support of this bill. The bill passed the committee and will now move to the state senate. I really do feel that the exceptions that were put in place makes any hit that the commercial fishing industry would take virtually negligible. I think that this bill is designed to help cut the head off the shark fin trade in NJ and as a result help to further protect large species of shark that are in a lot of trouble right now. Will people go against the law and do it anyway? Of course they will, but at least they can be penalized for doing so. Having a federal law against shark finning is one thing. It's a law that will hardly ever actually be enforced. State laws banning shark fin trade however can be upheld and have been upheld in 9 other states.

There is no date set yet for this bill to be looked at by the state senate. When that date becomes public I will be sure to pass it along. The battle to save sharks in New Jersey is starting to heat up once again. Back in 2012 a similar bill was defeated before it even reached the senate. This time around, the bill looks more friendly to commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen. While it is not a true 100% ban on the sale of fins, it is a huge ste in the right direction. I've said all along that the dogfish issue is one that needs to be treated as a separate issue in New Jersey. While it is true that dogfish populations worldwide have declined, the opposite is true for the dogfish of New Jersey whom, along with various rays, continue to see their populations grow among a decreasing large shark population.

As always, thank you all for reading. If you would like to voice your support for this bill feel free to contact or write to New Jersey Senator Raymond Lesniak! You can contact him here http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/SelectRep.asp or check out this page where you can find ore contact info.http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=61 . From this blog I would like to voice a MASSIVE Thank You to Senator Lesniak for bringing this bill back to life and seeing it go to the state senate!

Desperation, Determination, and Tempers Surface in the Southern and Indian Oceans

Greetings everyone! Today I come to you all with an update on Sea Shepherd's ongoing anti poaching campaign in the Southern Ocean. Boy what a busy week it has been. So busy in fact that things were happening faster than I could find time to blog about! For the duration of this blog keep in mind where these ships are in the world. They are several hours ahead of where I am typing from so where they are it is already Sunday. This blog will be a timeline based on this timezone and not where the ships currently are located. Let's start with Monday...

On Monday, the Sea Shepherd vessel Sam Simon located two illegal toothfish poaching vessels. The two vessels that were located are two of the three that the New Zealand Navy had followed around for a bit. The Sam Simon is now in pursuit of a fleeing poaching vessel, Kunlun. The Kunlun was ordered out of the area by the Sam Simon. Rather than leave, the illegal fishing vessel turned towards and nearly rammed the conservation vessel as seen below...


Photo: Sea Shepherd

Back on January 13th, at the request of the New Zealand Navy, the Kunlun and two other vessels were issued Interpol Purple Notices. As of this time, the Sam Simon continues to pursue the Kunlun which has left the fishing grounds.

On Wednesday, in the Indian Ocean, things heated up between the Sea Shepherd Vessel, Bob Barker, and the illegal toothfish poaching vessel, Thunder. During the night, the Thunder was seen deploying illegal fishing gear.



With the fishing gear deployed, the poachers again began to flee the pursuing conservationists. Rather than lose the poachers, Sea Shepherd elected to continue the chase. After running for a day, the Thunder turned and began to head back towards the nets. The ships arrived back at the nets yesterday (Friday our time, Saturday their time) where a standoff took place. After about an hour or so of blocking the Thunder's attempts at recovering the net, the Captain of the Thunder decided to put the lives of both the conservationists and his own crew on the line. The poaching vessel crossed within one meter of the conservation vessel's bow as seen in the video that will be at the end of this paragraph. Also in the video you will see the illegal fishing operation. You will also notice a shark being tossed back into the sea. Sea Shepherd believes that the reason for this was that the Thunder was not fishing for a profit this time, but rather for food. If it had been for profit, the shark would probably have been finned. Whatever the reason, it is still illegal.



That brings us to what amounts to breaking news! Just a short time ago, Sea Shepherd posted on Facebook that they had shut down the Thunder's latest attempt at illegally fishing. The Captain of the Thunder radioed the Bob Barker and stated that they were going to resume fishing activities. The Bob Barker responded by telling the Thunder that they would obstruct any attempt at illegal fishing. As the Thunder began to deploy the line, the crew of the Bob Barker tossed a grappling hook and reeled in the net and cut the line leading back to the Thunder. Once the net was retrieved the Thunder reeled in the remainder of the net and ceased fishing operations. Obviously angered by the conservationists success, the captain of the Thunder radioed the Bob Barker claiming that they were going to get their fishing gear the easy way or the hard way and that the Bob Barker had declared "War" on them.


Photos: Sea Shepherd (Conservationists reeling in the line from the Thunder)

The Captain of the Bob Barker, Peter Hammarstedt responded by saying that the net will be used as evidence against the Thunder and that the Thunder is more than welcome to follow the Bob Barker to port to retrieve the net. The Thunder chased after the faster conservation ship for two hours before stopping at which point, the Bob Barker also stopped. Latest news is that the two ships are just drifting.

So now you are all caught up on the pursuit of poachers in both the Southern and Indian Oceans. The Thunder is appearing to be more and more desperate with each passing day. Tempers are flaring and it seems that the pressure (and evidence) continues to be mounting against the poachers. Elsewhere the Sam Simon continues to pursue the  KunLun. Sea Shepherd's determination to do the job that the Government of Australia continues to fail in doing is unwavering and for that, the sea and anyone who cares about it must offer a huge thank you!!!

Australia Fails Sharks Once Again

Greetings everyone. I hope all is well with all of you. Wow February already huh? So on the eve of the Superbowl I have finally gathered my thoughts for this blog. About a week/ week and a half ago or so, news began breaking that Australia would be backing out of it's commitment to protect 5 species of shark. Back in November of 2014, Australia agreed to protect 2 species of hammerhead and 3 species of thresher shark that migrate through Australian waters. This agreement was signed at the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS). Suddenly the Australian Government had a change of heart and decided that these protections are simply not needed as the fishing of these species is already regulated.

While that is the case (Australia is one of the world leaders in conservation), it seems that this move is mostly a political one. By that I mean that this backing out is a result of fishermen pressure who like to commercially or for recreation, hunt these animals. The agreement would see those who caught the 5 species as a target or bycatch slapped with heavy fines and even jail time. So here's what I think about this apparent reservation Australia has...

I really do feel that the government of Australia has bowed not only to the recreational fishermen, but moreso the commercial fishermen. With seemingly endless and indiscriminate ways to catch mass amounts of fish at one time, the chances of bycatch is high. Long line fishing, gill nets, etc etc etc have all caught different species of shark throughout the course of history as bycatch. Under this new agreement those responsible for that bycatch would have to pay a heavy penalty if I am understanding correctly. Obviously the commercial fishermen don't want to have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars. At the same time, Australia decided to protect it's commercial fishing practices as they are now rather than revise them in order to help an international agreement to protect these 5 species of shark. Just another day in the land of Oz where more and more, the government really seems to just miss the boat sort to speak with sharks as of late...

Reflections of One Year Ago

Greetings everyone. For those who are still following here from a year ago, you might remember yesterday and today as two days that really brought the world's eyes to Taiji, Japan. It was roughly one year ago that the fishermen of Taiji rounded up a superpod of over 200 bottlenose dolphins into the killing cove of Taiji.

I'm not going to be going over the entire story of what happened again as it has been a year, but I do want to reflect back on what was going on at the time and some major images and feelings that exploded over a four day period when these dolphins were being held with no food and in many cases divided from their families

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Among the pod was an infant albino bottlenose dolphin. Originally it was thought that this dolphin would fetch an extremely heavy profit, but due to health conditions, the baby was sentenced to a life at the Taiji Whale Museum where it lives among preserved dolphin heads and an array of other objects such as dolphin fetuses jars... The baby was named "Angel" by conservationists and continues to be viewed as a major victim of the greed of the Taiji Dolphin Slaughter. As for Angel's mother... It is believed that she was one of the many that were slaughtered over the course of the four days.

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The fishermen continued to prove to the now watching world that they truly have no regard for the lives of the dolphins they had caught. Time and time again, the fishermen would cut through the dolphin pod with skiffs, cutting many with the propeller of the skiff's motor as seen in the image above. This image of the dolphins being run over still brings back the feelings of anger and sorrow for these animals that were present at the time this was occurring. Many of the dolphins that were injured from the boats were slaughtered. 

The travesty that was occurring in Taiji drew the attention of the United States Ambassador Caroline Kennedy who posted on Twitter her concern about the inhumanity of Taiji. The town of Taiji would invite Caroline to Taiji to witness how humane the killing is. To my knowledge Caroline never made the trip to Taiji. At least she isn't blind to how inhumae the killings are...( Not for nothing, but spearing an animal time and time again until it's dead is not my idea of humane... Neither is jamming a cork in a marine mammal's blowhole to prevent bleeding.)

Photo Credit: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

As has been the case over the past few years, the killers of Taiji would try to hide what they do so "humanely" from the world by covering their operation with tarps. Still the gaps in the tarps exposed the blood red waters of the cove. 

Pressure from social media as well as world media eventually made itself known and luckily a large number of this superpod was driven back out to sea with the same techniques that they were driven into the cove. The Anonymous collective responded with the hacking of over 150 websites with connections to Taiji, including Sea World. CNN ran a special segment educating people about Taiji. Twitter and Facebook exploded with outrage. For the first time since "The Cove" was released, Taiji was openly attacked by virtually everyone for what it was doing.

One year ago as Taiji hit the media again I had hoped that an end may have been so so close. However, life continued on and Taiji slowly fell back into the shadows and those who had been fighting continued to fight, but many of the outraged public fell back to their daily lives and the fishermen continued to do what they do best. In total 52 of the dolphins were sold into captivity, 41 died while in the nets, and roughly 130-140 were driven back out to sea. So here we are one year later. Taiji continues to capture and kill dolphins at will. 

What needs to be remembered at all times is why this slaughter even happens. I do not care what anyone's position is on cetaceans in captivity. I do not mean this to be pro or anti captivity, but here is the fact. This slaughter is largely the result of the captive dolphin industry. The Taiji fishermen and government claim that the primary reason this slaughter takes place is for food. The problem with that claim is that the demand for dolphin meat is so low it often is mislabeled as greater whale meat. Even then, it is really a chore to sell the meat as the demand for whale meat as a whole is on the decline as well. No folks, the real driving force behind the slaughter is the captive dolphin industry. Here is a very simple proof. Lets take a single bottlenose dolphin. The meat of that dolphin is worth roughly $100 USD, perhaps a bit more. That same dolphin can easily be sold into captivity for about $200,000 USD. That's not counting Angel whose price was approaching $4,000,000 before her health problems were noted.

The facts are what they are and until the demand for dolphins dies, this slaughter will continue. Without the captive trade, there would be no slaughter as there simply is not enough money generated without it. Japan claims that the Taiji drive hunt is a proud tradition. If it is so proud, why hide it? If it is so proud why try and prevent the world from seeing. The fact is that this "hunt" is nothing more than a massive greed move on the hands of Japan right up there with it's so called "scientific whale program". If the money stopped flowing, this "proud" tradition would fall to the wayside sooner rather than later.  

The Continuing Saga of Chasing Poachers

Greetings once again everyone! I hope all is well as usual. Today's blog will not be too terribly long, but will be yet another update on what is going on in both the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean in regards to Sea Shepherd pursuing illegal toothfish poachers. Before getting started I'd like to remind everyone that this is mostly a shark blog, but lately there's been a ton of news about the toothfish situation. Alright so let's get to it.

My last blog ended as Sea Shepherd was still, and still is hot on the trail of the illegal fishing vessel "Thunder". Since then the New Zealand Navy had intercepted three other illegal fishing vessels in the Southern Ocean, but were denied permission to board and inspect the vessels.

Photo: New Zealand Defense Force

The ships, which can clearly be seen illegally catching toothfish did not fear the navy and continued to fish. New Zealand's Navy did nothing more than photograph and follow the vessels after being denied permission to board. The Navy followed and documented the activities until their ship needed to refuel. At that time Sea Shepherd announced that they would take up the chase of the three vessels with the "Sam Simon" while the "Bob Barker" continues to pursue the "Thunder". The Sea Shepherd vessel arrived at the last known location of the fishing vessels and began to recover a third massive gillnet. Once recovered the conservation group will set out to find the fishing vessels. In the mean time, Interpol has issued Purple Notices for all three ships and New Zealand has began contacting a variety of countries where these ships may attempt to offload their catch. New Zealand also claims that it will make it very difficult for these ships to offload their illegal cargo.

So that is where we are in what is becoming a saga of chasing poachers in the Southern and Indian Oceans. New Zealand's Navy has stepped up and the very real possibility remains that they will again go to the Southern Ocean to search for poachers. While New Zealand is doing what it can, Australia continues to idly stand by and do nothing to prevent the ravaging of the Southern Ocean as they have done year after year after year.

Illegal Toothfish Poachers to be Brought to Justice?

Greeting everyone. Today I come to you all with some cautiously good news. Reports are that the country of Mozambique is preparing to arrest the illegal toothfish vessel, "Thunder" should the vessel enter the country's waters. Ports throughout Mozambique have been alerted to the approaching vessel. It is estimated that the amount of catch that the "Thunder" is carrying could exceed a couple million dollars. Due to the ship beginning to run low on fuel and the need to offload it's catch, the ship will have to head to a port sooner than later. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has been tailing the ship for a record 25 days, noted that the ship had slowed to a crawl of roughly 2 knots. The latest information I could find is that the ships are roughly 1,200 miles away from Mozambique and are well out of the Southern Ocean where the chase began.

Since the poaching vessel was spotted by Sea Shepherd 25 days ago, the ship has been on the run and has not been fishing. The other Sea Shepherd vessel in the area has been working on pulling up the illegal gillnets that the "Thunder" abandoned as they began to run. So far one massive gillnet has been recovered and a second at last update was still being recovered and appeared to be over 100 kilometers in length (over 60 miles). Over 250 toothfishes alone have been recovered and much of the catch is still being identified as many are in a state of serious decay. As the pressure continues to mount on the poachers, they have started to become more and more desperate.

Slowing to a crawling pace is not the only change in behavior of the vessel that had been doing everything it could to outrun the Sea Shepherd vessel. Over the past couple of days, the poachers have employed aggressive tactics such as shining their search lights directly onto the bridge of the Sea Shepherd ship, "Bob Barker", as well as aggressively turning and charging towards the larger conservation vessel. This shows me that these "people" are getting desperate. Until they began to act aggressively, the crew of the "Thunder" tried to escape Sea Shepherd by moving through the dense ice fields of the Southern Ocean as well as moving through incredibly strong Southern Ocean storms. Since they failed to lose the tail of the conservationists, the poachers have been heading north and as mentioned early, at last update were roughly 1,200 miles away from Mozambique.

With any luck, the poachers will continue to inch towards the waiting arms of Mozambique. With any luck the country that is claiming to be ready to apprehend these criminals will step up and do the job that should have been done by either France, Australia, or New Zealand when the ship was still in the Southern Ocean. This 25 day chase has been going on as an exact result of these three countries failure to arrest a vessel on the Interpol Purple List. Still, Sea Shepherd has not allowed these poachers to get away with their illegal fishing operation. They claim that they will follow these poachers to whichever port they land at, and virtually to the ends of the Earth. Once again, people who love the Ocean can thank this conservation group for taking care of the work of Governments. Hopefully the next time I blog on this topic it will be about the arrest of these illegal toothfish poachers!