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May 8: Confiscating a pirate longline and freeing the catch
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ACTION UPDATE: GREENPEACE CONFISCATES PIRATE LONGLINE AND FREES CATCH. Monday 8th May 2000

Freeing a Tuna Called Willy

7:30: The wake up call is back at its normal hour. Wandering bleary-eyed into the ship's mess, the first thing I see through the port hole looks suspiciously like a reefer. When I left the bridge last night, we were following the pirate vessel Benny, not a reefer. Does this mean those pirates have tricked us again?

My sources inform me that Benny certainly gave us the run around over night, of which I was vaguely aware, drifting in and out of sleep with the noise of the engine, or lack of it, as we alternated between drifting and steaming full ahead. Benny is certainly considerably lighter than this time yesterday! Not, however, as a result of his nocturnal antics - although these were perhaps facilitated by the fact that the Panamanian registered Hatsukari yesterday relieved him of an estimated 70 tonnes of bigeye tuna and some fillets of marlin or swordfish.

Assuming an average bigeye weight of 80kg, we were able to estimate the total weight, since the Hatsukari used a line, rather than a net to transfer the fish. This meant we could count the dangling, steaming, frozen tunas as they were lifted from the hold of one ship to the other. This is the first time that a transhipment of tunas has been documented in this way on the high seas.

It transpires that we did not lose Benny in the dark, he just led us around in a full circle back to - the Hatsukari! I can imagine they are not terribly happy to see us again. However, today they can breathe easily - we pass them to starboard and continue to follow the Cambodian-registered Benny.

8:30: Benny begins to lay its long line in position 9° 07 S - 4° 55 E. He does so in contravention of ICCAT rules - Cambodia is not a member and any non-contracting party vessel sighted in ICCAT convention area is presumed by ICCAT to be undermining ICCAT conservation measures (ICCAT Recommendation 98-11).

We let him go, feigning indifference. Cat lovers will have noticed that cats do much the same when playing with their prey. And so we just drift around for a while at the end of the long line he has just laid.

Marlon the Merlin, a Knight of the Ocean

10:30: Action stations again. We begin hauling in the end of Benny's long line, which is marked by a sophisticated-looking radio transmitter and buoys. Our aim: to confiscate part of the line as evidence and to document catch and by catch on the line.

Almost immediately, sharp tugs are felt on the line, which we reel in using Walter's purpose built motor, feeding the line along a human chain of helpers, before storing it on our specially designed wooden reel. Anyone not needed is hanging over the edge in anticipation.

There's a silver flash in the water and we gradually make out the silhouette of a very large fish. It's a bigeye tuna, soon being fondly referred to as Willy, as you may have guessed, after an Orca of the same name. An inflatable is lowered so that Gavin can film Willy quickly, before releasing him into the Big Blue.

It soon becomes apparent that Willy is swimming rather sluggishly and it is unlikely that he will survive his ordeal: the hook is lodged firmly down his throat and Gavin has to cut the line.

While it is saddening to see such a beautiful creature meet such a seemingly pointless fate, and some might say (licking their lips) "What a waste!", we should not forget that tuna are prey to other marine species. When man is plundering the oceans mercilessly, I for one would rather see Willy make a small contribution to replenishing the oceans we are emptying, than see him served up for dinner, or worse still canned. It is strange to think of the disassociation between something as dull and ugly as a can of tuna and this handsome untamed fish. I would certainly not have been able to eat a tuna fish dish after the image now in my mind of a fish called Willy flashing silver and blue in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, thrashing around pathetically on the end of a pirate long line.

We continue hauling the line for some time, unclipping the tracer lines and their evil looking-hooks. Squid are attached as bait. It is some time before we find anything else on the line. But suddenly it's jumping wildly with something that seems to be even bigger than Willy - this time very much alive and swimming angrily.

This is not a tuna but a blue marlin (a so-called "tuna-like" species). After the probable sad demise of Willy, we did not name the marlin, although I have a feeling that Marlon would have suited him (having watched a young Marlon Brando in 'Mutiny on the Bounty' on our ship's video a night or so ago). Like Marlon, this marlin seems to be a strong and larger than life character.

The blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) is apparently an ocean wanderer, swimming alone throughout the Atlantic and feeding on shoal fish and squid. If you know what a swordfish looks like, the marlin appears somewhat similar, both members of a group of species collectively known as billfishes - not a very romantic name for such handsome fish. However, I believe that they are also referred to as "knights of the sea", presumably because of their inbuilt sword-like "noses", more correctly described as "an elongated extension of the jaw, or pointed snout". The sword fish (its Latin name, Xiphias gladius, means "fish shaped like a sword") uses the sword projecting from its head to strike at its prey, stunning them before swallowing.

Marlon the Marlin would have been bycatch if reeled in by the Benny. This does not mean that he would have been thrown back into the sea, for marlin are a valuable species. However, we managed to save him from a deep frozen fate and ultimate service on a plate. Gavin diving to film again frees him, advising that he seemed to have got himself entangled in the tracer line, but had not swallowed the bait.

This raises the issue of the wider ecological impact of longline fishing. Although most of the pirate/FOC ships fishing in this area target bigeye and bluefin tunas, they also catch other tuna-like species (such as the swordfish and marlin), as well as numerous other sea creatures such as sharks and sea turtles. In many situations, longline fishing can be a highly indiscriminate and destructive fishing technique. With hundreds of boats setting tens of thousands of kilometres of longline and hundreds of thousands of hooks daily in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, there is, in addition to tuna, a wide range of other species of marine wildlife that are incidentally caught and killed in the course of fishing. What, we must ask is the effect of such disruptive practices on finely balanced marine ecosystems? And if they continue unchecked, what will be the longer term effect on the biodiversity of the oceans?

A difficult question to answer, particularly in the light of current chronic fishery data gaps. Stock assessment of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic and Mediterranean regions is made extremely difficult by the chronic weakness of tuna fishery statistics. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is the regional organisation established under international law to manage tuna fishing and conserve the stocks, but its effectiveness is much hindered by poor reporting, or
under-reporting, by the fishing boats which have permits to fish in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. But there is no data at all from the pirate fleets. ICCAT has estimated that the pirate FOC vessels fishing for tuna in the region land an amount equivalent to perhaps as much as a quarter of the catches for the prized bigeye tuna, and 10% for all tuna species. This makes a mockery of attempts to develop fishery statistics systems and co-ordinated research programmes.

Even though the FOC pirates are fishing for tuna species such as bigeye and bluefin, and other tuna-like species such as swordfish, most countries whose flags they are registered on, are not members of ICCAT. Consequently, this pirate FOC fleet simply does not comply with any of ICCAT’s rules set down to manage the fishing and conserve the tuna stocks, nor do they provide any information about their catches which is needed to enable managers to get a clear picture of the status of the tuna stocks in the region.

Transmitting a surprise to Benny!

After hauling in a few kilometres of longline, we leave the rest for Benny, along with a little surprise! I am not the only one who wishes we could see their faces, when they track down the radio transmitter which marks the end of their longline: attached to it is a yellow banner that reads: "Stop Pirate Fishing!" Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is one of the books I brought along for onboard reading. I must have romantic tendencies as I have to confess that my eyes glaze over when Hans explains the following to me about the technicalities of the radio buoy. However, I am well aware that there are many more technically (or classically) minded people out there for whom this may be interesting stuff. Over to you Hans:

The radio-buoy is not a remotely triggered buoy on VHF as we were told (by the Chien Chun No. 8), but transmits on 2805.0 KHz in CW "CQ62" plus a 3 seconds dash 3 times in a row and does this once every 4 minutes. CQ speed approx 12 wpm - it's straight CW i.e. no modulated carrier.

17:30: As the radio transmitter floats off into the evening sun, yellow banner flying out to one side, in the tropical trade winds, over and out!