Posted on 06/20/2002 7:49:09 AM PDT by John H K
A lone Australian navy Seahawk helicopter swept towards the crew of the Russian fishing boat Lena on a gray February day this year.
The rust-speckled trawler and its dozens of workers had been working in one of the loneliest places on Earth, the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where extreme cold and rough seas discourage all but the heartiest and most determined of seamen. But the Lena certainly had incentive to be in these waters. By the time the Seahawk arrived, the Lena had in its hold an estimated $1.25 million worth of Patagonian toothfish, also known as Chilean sea bass.
As the Seahawk hovered overhead, a team of troops and fisheries officials fast-roped on to the deck. The boarding party was clad in bright-red cold weather coveralls, helmeted — and armed.
The troops and fisheries officials had arrived because the Lena's treasure was illegal, and they were armed, because they expected resistance.
Treachery on the Waves
The traditional view of a fisherman's life is that it's no less serene work than that of a farmer — the fisherman plucks his treasures from the sea just as the farmer harvests his fruits and vegetables from the earth.
But seldom do people realize how much pain and sacrifice is involved. Job surveys have consistently named fishing as one of the world's most dangerous professions.
Most information has pointed to natural forces and the heavy equipment involved, but danger comes from other human beings as well. The Lena is only one of multitudes of poaching and smuggling cases that take place annually around the world — and a comparatively non-violent case as well.
"It is a very dangerous profession," said Susan Shirley of Alaska's Department of Fish and Game. "We always though it was related to the mechanical aspects, all the hydraulics involved, but I suppose there is another aspect," she said.
Fish and Fights
Actually, there are many other aspects.
Organized Crime — Before 1991, the caviar market in the Caspian Sea was tightly controlled by Russia and Iran, which diligently maintained stocks. It is the source of 90 percent of the world's Beluga sturgeon, whose caviar is one of the most expensive animal products on Earth. In the years since the Soviet Union's collapse, however, as much as 12 times the legal amount of sturgeon has been removed from the area yearly.
In the Bering Sea, the Russian mafia illegally fished as much as $4 billion worth of seafood yearly, according to a December 2001 World Wildlife Fund report.
Three weeks ago, Russian General Vitaly Gamov, the head of the coast guard on the Far East Russian island of Sakhalin was killed by a gasoline bomb. Police believe the attack was connected to his request to have all fishing vessels carry tracking devices so that the coast guard could monitor them.
Territorial and fisheries disputes — Some of the fights over fish occur because of either border disputes or questions over just where the fish in question originated. Take the case of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. They may spawn in Canada, migrate to ocean waters in the United States, and then return to rivers in Canada.
"When a fisherman looks at a fish in his hand, a salmon is a salmon," said Coast Guard Commander John Frost, who is in charge of law enforcement off California. "It gets kind of thorny," he said. "The only way to tell is genetic differences."
International tension — In the 1970s, Great Britain and Iceland almost went to war over a fishing dispute after Iceland claimed authority over the ocean up to 200 miles from its coast. Iceland sent its coast guard to cut the nets of British fishing trawlers, which violated this rule, and Icelandic ships and British trawlers and frigates frequently rammed each other. The dispute ended when Great Britain agreed to Iceland's economic borders.
As recently as 1994, Norway fired warning shots and cut the nets of Icelandic trawlers that strayed too close to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, on which Norway has a claim.
Domestic squabbles — Kevin Gaynor, an environmental lawyer, recalls a time he was in Maine to prosecute some lobstermen who had placed their traps in an important channel, blocking access to a jetty built with public funds.
"Anybody who said anything [in protest of the lobster traps] had their tires slashed, their windows smashed," he said. One lobsterman who tried to find a compromise had all 500 of his traps pulled out of the water and vandalized.
Gear conflict — In one area, there may be several different fishermen fishing different species on one area, and their methods might affect one another. One example is trawlers using long line nets, sweeping up lobster traps in the process, Frost said.
The World Is My Oyster, not Yours
The reason for all this tension on the seas is obvious: money. "In a lot of these fishes there's real money to be made," said Kim Davis, senior fisheries officer at TRAFFIC, an international conservation organization.
A half-pound of top-quality sturgeon roe can sell for nearly $1,500 in Europe. The Patagonian toothfish found on the Lena can merit as much as $10 a pound.
The increasing interconnectedness of the world has also increased the potential profit to be made from fish. Any American supermarket has fish from around the world. You can catch a tuna in the gulf of Maine, call a fish broker, and he'll be there before you dock, Gaynor said.
"You [can] hand the fish over to a special delivery truck, pocket $30,000-$40,000 and next it'll be at Logan [airport] and at the Tokyo fish market the next morning."
Technology has also increased the efficiency by which fleets can capture fish, making stocks scarcer, and increasing the competition. Sonar, global positioning satellites and refrigeration have contributed to the development of factory trawlers, which can catch, process and hold immense amounts of fish.
The competition has in turn led to what experts term a "gold rush" mentality. Fishermen grab as much as they can, before other fishermen deplete the stocks, or before conservation authorities step in.
The attitude of many fishermen, familiar to Americans in the stereotype of the taciturn, independent Maine sailor, doesn't help. "They feel like they have a right to the stock. It's their belief that the stock is inexhaustible," Gaynor said.
Gaynor and other experts admitted some conservation efforts can be debated though. Regulators often struggle with interpreting myriad factors. "It's like global warming," Gaynor said.
Nevertheless, the violence for the oceans' treasures only highlight the desperate circumstances of the treasures themselves, said Davis. "The story is one of serial depletion," she said.
The fishing fleets have gone from one animal to the other, driving them to the edge of extinction. First, there was the craze for blackened redfish, Davis said. Then, she said, the taste was for Patagonian toothfish, and next will likely be monkfish and dogfish.
As restaurateurs gear up for this next big thing — fishermen will respond, and conservationists will, too.
Do you ever find catfish and dog fish in the same water? :-) I know, dogfish are saltwater and catfish are fresh water, aren't they?
Catfish are found in both fresh and saltwater.
When they get down to toadfish, it's time to go vegan.
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