Anger and Confidence – My Donation to Sea Shepherd

My story over the Chinese fishing fleet, which is now legally emptying the Somali waters, has caused me and many of you to feel helpless rage. I have now rediscovered for myself how I can turn this bitterness into confidence: with a 100 Euro donation for the militant environmental organisation Sea Shepherd.

In the past, the activists, defamed as eco-pirates, were notorious for ramming and sinking whaling boats. Meanwhile, the organisation has a new goal: It is hunting criminal fishers from Antarctica to the Mediterranean Sea with their 53 m long flagship BOB BARKER. Because the former „terrorists“ now cooperate with local governments and have fishery inspectors and armed military on board, for example off West Africa, the authorities are full of praise. The fact that pirate fishermen and factory ships have been „deliberately sunk“ according to Wikipedia is accepted.

The Sea Shepherd’s battle against a group of six hake poachers in Antarctica became known worldwide in 2014. In December 2014, the organization announced that the BOB BARKER had found the poacher THUNDER. After a 110-day chase, the captain then sunk the THUNDER off the West African coast to hide evidence. The STEVE IRWIN, another ship of the organisation, then tracked the last poacher ship to Indonesia, where it was sunk by the local navy in March 2016.

Since 2016, Sea Shepherd has been working with several African coastal states to combat pirate fishing. These partnerships have resulted in the designation of 29 vessels for fisheries crimes. Among them was a longliner flying the Spanish flag. Below deck there were plenty of sharks whose fins had been cut off despite an EU ban on finning. In addition, the crews of three illegal trawlers, including Chinese, were arrested as part of a joint campaign by Sea Shepherd and the Government of Gabon.

This April, the BOB Barker then stopped the illegal purse seine SOLEVANT in cooperation with the Liberian. The ship was already fined by the Liberian authorities in 2012 for illegal fishing activities.

The following clip shows the damage caused by purse seiners.

Since June 24, Sea Shepherd has been active in the Mediterranean with the 56 m long SAM SIMON. In cooperation with the Italian Guardia di Finanza, the vessel collects illegal drift nets north of Sicily. Although these so-called Spadare nets have been banned since 2003, they are still frequently used around Italy to catch swordfish. In these nets, sperm whales, dolphins, sea turtles, tunas and sharks die again and again.

Off the Calabrian coast, a trawler has already been caught in the act laying out a drift net attached to his boat at night. He then tried to loosen the drift net to make the evidence disappear, including a dead swordfish tangled up in it, but a Sea Shepherd speedboat was there in time to report the position of the net to the appropriate Guardia di Finanza.

These actions have my respect. That is why I am now donating again to Sea Shepherd.