Steve Irwin Attacked in Libyan Waters

Steve Irwin Rammed by Bluefin Fish­ery Ves­sel;
Sea Shep­herd Crew Repel Vio­lent Assault by Fish­er­men;
Libyan Navy in Pur­suit of the Steve Irwin
Oper­a­tion Blue Rage: Day Ten of the Mediter­ranean Patrol

Thurs­day, June 17th, 2010
Loca­tion: Off the Coast of Libya

Report by Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, Steve Irwin

Sea Shepherd’s heli­copter recon­nais­sance flight this morn­ing found two fish­ing ves­sels. One was engaged in trans­fer­ring bluefin tuna into one of the two nets being towed by the oth­er ves­sel.

The bluefin fish­ery ves­sels were inside waters claimed by Libya and about 42 miles off the coast of North Africa.

At 1300 hours, the Steve Irwin came upon the Ital­ian ves­sel Cesare Rus­ti­co tow­ing two cages; one con­tained about 800 fish (the oth­er was emp­ty).

The Cap­tain of the Cesare Rus­ti­co said when ques­tioned that the tuna were caught on the morn­ing of the 14th by the Libyan ves­sel Tagreft. When we replied that the num­ber of tuna in the cage exceed­ed the quo­ta for the Tagreft, the Cap­tain said the cage also includ­ed tuna from sev­en oth­er Libyan sein­ers. All the catch­es were caught on the 14th, the last legal day, accord­ing to the Cap­tain. The oth­er sev­en sein­ers named were the Khand­heel 2, Hani­bal, Ozul 2, Almad­i­na, Mori­na, and Khaleej Elta­ha­di and one oth­er that he had no name for. The prob­lem with this expla­na­tion was that we had observed the Khand­heel 2 on the 13th and 14th of June, and it was not fish­ing. In addi­tion, weath­er con­di­tions for those two days made fish­ing vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble. The extreme­ly dif­fi­cult con­di­tions, cou­pled with the posi­tion of the cages only 40 miles off the Libyan coast, when they should have been mov­ing 25 miles a day, sug­gest­ed to us that the fish were fresh­ly caught with­in the last three days at the most.

Their state­ment that all the catch­es were caught on the 14th sound­ed much too con­ve­nient, so we asked to exam­ine the fish for juve­niles. We were refused. I then put the bow of the Steve Irwin onto the cage so we could look into the cage from the bow to exam­ine it fur­ther.

Sud­den­ly, the Mal­tese ves­sel Rosaria Tuna rammed the Steve Irwin on the aft port side and slid along­side the port rail, as a fish­er­man tried to vio­lent­ly gaff Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers with a long, sharp-hooked pole.

The Steve Irwin crew retal­i­at­ed with 8 liters of rot­ten but­ter forc­ing the fish­ing ves­sel to retreat and to stand off.

At 1530 hours, the two fish­ing ves­sels cir­cled their cages defen­sive­ly and the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin stood off to noti­fy ICCAT (Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for the Con­ser­va­tion of Atlantic Tuna) of pos­si­ble vio­la­tions. They did not respond.

The Jean Char­cot, the ICCAT inspec­tion ves­sel will not ven­ture south of 33 Degrees 40 Min­utes North.

With two fish­ing ves­sels con­tain­ing angry Ital­ian crews, there were risks involved with get­ting into the water to assess the bluefin catch. But if the catch was ille­gal, Sea Shep­herd divers knew they must cut the nets and free the bluefin tuna.

Some­times it is nec­es­sary to do what needs to be done despite the risks. The risk of los­ing the bluefin tuna as a species is far more impor­tant than the risks to our own lives and free­dom.

And so we decid­ed to free the tuna.

At 1600 hours, a five-per­son dive crew entered one of two cages being towed by the Ital­ian fish­ing ves­sel Cesare Rus­ti­co.

As the Steve Irwin held off the Cesare Rus­ti­co and the sup­port ship Rosaria Tuna, the Sea Shep­herd crew dove into the net to iden­ti­fy the size, age, and quan­ti­ty of the bluefin tuna with­in. Once it was clear­ly estab­lished that the cage was over­stocked and that a high per­cent­age were juve­niles, Sea Shep­herd divers freed the 700–800 tuna.

It is our posi­tion that the bluefin tuna we freed from that cage held a large num­ber of juve­niles and that the fish were caught after the offi­cial clo­sure of the sea­son. It is also our posi­tion that the fish that we freed exceed­ed the quo­ta.

A large per­cent­age of the tuna were juve­niles and from the posi­tion of the cages and the fact that the entire Mediter­ranean bluefin tuna fish­ery closed at mid­night on June 14th, Sea Shep­herd is con­vinced that this catch was caught after June 14 and there­fore Sea Shep­herd holds the posi­tion that this oper­a­tion by these two ves­sels was ille­gal.*

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is not a protest orga­ni­za­tion. Sea Shep­herd is an anti-poach­ing orga­ni­za­tion and these two sein­ers are poach­ers.

A Sea Shep­herd cam­era­man filmed the release of the fish from the cen­tre of the cage and swim­mers con­firmed that all 700–800 tuna inside the enclo­sure were freed.

“They shot out of that net like race­hors­es,” said Cana­di­an cam­era­man Simon Ager.

After free­ing the bluefin tuna, the Steve Irwin head­ed north and out of the waters claimed by Libya. The Mal­tese media report­ed that Libya had dis­patched war­ships to pur­sue the Steve Irwin.

There are claims in the Mal­tese press that a bluefin tuna fish­er­man was injured by our actions. No one on the Steve Irwin, in the heli­copter, or in the Delta saw any inci­dent where a fish­er­man was injured. We saw one man dive into the water from the side of the cage. Then, we saw him get up and give us the rude Ital­ian arm sig­nal. Anoth­er fish­er­man slashed at the crew with a hook on the end of a long pole, and one of the ves­sels rammed us in the port stern area.

* Notes

Giv­en the very bad weath­er con­di­tions in the zone north of Tripoli until the clo­sure of the legal fish­ing sea­son on June 14th, it is impos­si­ble that this catch was tak­en dur­ing the legal sea­son. The tuna were caught post-clo­sure, dur­ing a peri­od of very calm weath­er that has pre­dom­i­nat­ed over the area since the 15th.

Legal Sea­son:
Wind speed 12th June: 20–35 knots / Seas 1–2 meters
Wind speed 13th June: 20–25 knots / Seas 1–2 meters
Wind speed 14th June: 10–20 knots / Seas 1–2 meters

Post clo­sure:
Wind speed 15th June: 10–15 knots / Seas 1 meter
Wind speed 16th June: 15 knots / Seas 1 meter Wind speed 17th June: 10 knots / Seas 1 meter

The Steve Irwin passed the Khan­deel 2 (one of the ves­sels on the BCD doc­u­ment read over the VHF radio) on the 13th at 1230 at 33*36 / 13*55, less than 20 miles from where we encoun­tered the cages towed by Cesare Rus­ti­co and Rosario Tuna on the 17th, and it was not fish­ing. The weath­er was rough.

Giv­en the loca­tion of the cap­ture, and the loca­tion of the tow ves­sel, it is impos­si­ble the catch was made 3 days ago. Head­ing towards Mal­ta with an aver­age 25 miles per day, the ves­sel and cage would have been much fur­ther north (the ves­sel was in very calm weath­er sit­ting still wait­ing a sec­ond ves­sel).

Vis­it our Oper­a­tion Blue Rage Cam­paign site — http://www.seashepherd.org/blue-rage/