Cameras for dead fish? No deal.

Commercial fishermen face off with ocean conservation group

Posted by Andrew Sharpless (Guest Contributor) at 10:50 AM on 25 May 2007

Read more about: oceans | fishing | scientific research

Like characters in an adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, the research crew aboard Oceana's research catamaran, the Ranger, found themselves in peril amidst the clutches of a seven-ship band of angry fishermen wielding hooks.

The Ranger, at sea now for two weeks photographing the use of illegal driftnets in international waters off of France, was sailing peacefully when seven ships surrounded it, demanding cameras and other incriminating evidence. The angry commercial fishermen immobilized the Ranger's propellers with rope, and hurled fish (and four-letter words) at the crew.

Luckily, the hour-long incident ended with only the Ranger crew's ears injured, as the ships high-tailed it out of there when the French maritime authorities came to the rescue -- via heliocopter.

The commercial fishermen want the photos for good reason: they document the senseless bycatch and killing of marine life, and expose the use of illegal nets. Similar images from Italy during last year's expedition led to new legislation and a crackdown on the illegal practice. Our very own Xavier Pastor (leader of our Ranger crew and head of European office) put it best:

If anyone still had any doubt about the illegality of the French driftnets, the brutal attempts by the fishermen to try to avoid keeping information about their illegal driftnetting, at all costs, from the general public and the authorities is plain to see.

For story: Cameras for dead fish? No deal.
5 Comments | Post a Comment

well done

Good news, Andrew. Hope this leads to good change in France. The jacks with the hooks must've been aware of the successes in Italy...

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by Erik Hoffner at 6:35 PM on 25 May 2007

frightening experience

This is a very disturbing story. It just goes to show that this kind of activism takes a lot of courage -- as many Greenpeace volunteers can testify, as well as the documenters of the seal slaughter off eastern Canada.

Although in this case it was the French military who drove off the thonailler-pirates, ironically it was French military divers who sank Greenpeace's first Rainbow Warrior when it was docked in New Zealand. We may very well hope and pray that the threat of violence by the pirates against Oceana's Ranger is over; but unfortunately it is too soon to tell.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:12 PM on 25 May 2007

Driftnets and ghost fishing

Driftnets are among the worst culprits in ghost fishing.

Glad to see the French military come to the rescue. (And good point about the irony of that, Canis!) Unfortunately, the attitude of officialdom towards farmers and fishers in the Mediterranean countries is all too often that these avocations, and their traditions of self governance, long predate the authority of modern-day governments, so one has to deal with their infractions with kid gloves.

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 10:53 PM on 25 May 2007

Those silly French men

Throwing fish and exposing their genitals ...how insulting.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 7:13 AM on 26 May 2007

"You English pig-dogs!"

"I fart in your general direction!"

"Why do you think I talk in this accent, if I were not French?!"

And in all the glorious literature about the Quest for the Holy Grail, I think it is true that never did anyone say, "Oh yes, we have one."

Of course, at the end, the French defenders of the castle did something that would have amounted to suicide in the true Middle Ages: they shoot out by catapult their edible critters, starting with la vache.

Ethnically and linguistically, the northern French (the Monty Python type) are distinct from the southern French, the latter including these thonailler-pirates, apparently from either Provence or Corsica -- which is really Italian, and is only French due to some recent historical developments. Yes, Napoleone Buonaparte (five syllables in the first name, four syllables in that surname!), history's most famous Corsican, in spite of all that "Vive l'Empereur!" business, came from a family of citizens in the Republic of Genova. So for all we know, he was a distant cousin of Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo).

And Italians are a prickly bunch. You have to watch out. I am not at all surprised that those thonailler-pirates already got nasty, and I would not be surprised,unfortunately, if they have some more dangerous tricks to play.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:26 AM on 26 May 2007

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