Australia seizes Togo-flagged ship for poaching
Date: 17-Apr-01
Country: AUSTRALIA
The vessel, the South Tommy, was taken over by about 40 Australian troops who were on South African boats about 540 km (340 miles) south of Cape Town last week.
The South Tommy was steaming back to Western Australia, where the international crew would be prosecuted for catching prized Patagonian toothfish without a licence, said a spokesman for Forestry and Conservation Minister Wilson Tuckey.
The poachers were pursued by an Australian survey vessel after the South Tommy was found fishing in Australia's exclusive economic zone near the McDonald and Heard Islands in the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. "It's been cat and mouse for 14 days with two boats just 1,000 metres apart," Tuckey told Reuters.
Australian fisheries officers estimate the ship had more than 100 tonnes of Patagonian toothfish on board. The government only gives two licences a year for a limited season to catch toothfish.
"It's a resource that just cannot be over-exploited and we're determined to make sure it's not over-exploited by Australian nationals or pirates," Tuckey said.
He hailed the cooperation with the South African government in catching the rogue vesselsaying it proved there was now a fence to protect threatened fish populations between South Africa and Australia down to Antarctica.
Scientists predict that if illegal fishing continues, the Patagonian toothfish, also known as Chilean Sea Bass, Mero and Black Hake, will be commercially extinct within a couple of years.