Sea Shepherds take on illegal tuna fishing
…Down below, the ship’s captain is frustrated by that emptiness. He believes quite strongly that boats are fishing for bluefin tuna illegally, hastening what he fears is the species’ demise. He wants to find those fishermen and stop them. But there are few blips on the ship’s radar and few specks on the horizon save for the occasional NATO warship.
Paul Watson, captain of the Steve Irwin and founder of the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is mostly frustrated by what he sees as the Byzantine bureaucracy that fails to enforce its own fishing quotas and makes it very difficult for him to determine who is out on the Mediterranean harvesting tuna illegally.