Battle at sea: Tunisian fishermen attack environmentalist boat by throwing heavy chain links

A good post:

Tuna fishermen battled environmentalists on the Mediterranean,
hurling heavy links of chain at them as the environmentalists
attempted to disrupt illegal tuna fishing under the no-fly zone
north of Libya.

The fishermen also attempted to lay a rope in front of the
activists’ boat, the Steve Irwin owned by the
U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
hoping to disable it Saturday. Environmentalists responded with
fire hoses and stink bombs.

Several hundred feet (meters) above the fray circled a French
fighter jet, summoned by the fishermen who
claimed, falsely, that activist divers were trying to cut their
net.

The 60-meter (195-foot) Steve Irwin, named after the Australian
conservationist who died in 2006, left the Sicilian port of
Syracuse early Friday, heading for a rendezvous with a smaller,
faster sister ship, the Brigitte Bardot, just north of Libyan
waters. The Bardot had traversed the area and reported that more
than 20 purse seiners were operating there.

Purse seiners are boats that deploy large nets that draw closed
like a purse, ensnaring the tuna. The fish are then sometimes put
in floating net-cages and slowly towed to port.

Sea Shepherd is on a mission to disrupt boats that are fishing
illegally. The stock of bluefin tuna, which spawn in the
Mediterranean and then swim out to the North Atlantic, has been
depleted to the point that some experts fear it will soon
collapse.

Late in the day, having broken off the earlier confrontation,
the Irwin and the Bardot entered Libyan waters in search of illegal
fishing boats there.

Saturday’s confrontation began to take shape at first light as
the sun lifted and blazed a blinding stripe across the sea. Ten
purse seiners were working several miles from the Steve Irwin in
one direction, and five were spotted in another direction

The ship’s crew are true believers; only vegan fare is served on
board. But Captain Paul Watson, the Sea Shepherd founder, and other
officers say they only go after boats that are fishing illegally
— if they are not allotted a quota by ICCAT, the
International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or
have exceeded it, or their catch includes too many juveniles.

As the Steve Irwin approached the group of five boats Saturday
to determine their identities and inspect their catch, high stakes
manoeuvring began at close quarters.

The boats were Tunisian, and at least one, according to the
Steve Irwin’s crew, was not licensed to fish and they did not
respond to radio calls.

The Sea Shepherd environmentalists, who have no official
enforcement powers, deployed a small launch to inspect the cage,
while the Tunisians suddenly scrambled two, then three small
dinghies to protect their net. Others tried to cut off the Steve
Irwin or chase it away.

Fishermen in the larger boats threw heavy links of chain at the
environmentalists hitting no one, but
eventually forcing the launch to retreat without being able to
determine if there were tuna in the cage.

A larger Tunisian boat pulled alongside the Steve Irwin and the
crew pelted the environmentalists with chain links. The crew of the
Irwin responded with stink bombs containing, they said, rancid
butter.

A Tunisian dinghy also towed a rope in front of the Steve Irwin,
hoping it would get tangled in the propeller and disable the
ship.

Meanwhile, the Tunisians could be overheard radioing the French
military for help, saying environmentalist divers were in the water
trying to cut their nets.

That was not the case. However, the Sea Shepherd volunteers are
prepared to do that to free the tuna, if they determine the fishing
to have been illegal  and they have cut nets in
the past.

The Irwin’s officers deemed sending in divers at this point too
dangerous. The Tunisians were aggressive, and they had deployed
divers to protect their cage, which could have led, in effect, to
hand-to-hand combat in the sea.

A French military jet appeared on the scene in short order and
flew over the area at an altitude of a couple of hundred feet as
the drama unfolded below. The pilot later scolded the crew of the
Steve Irwin for endangering human lives.

Eventually, the Steve Irwin broke off contact. Officers on the
ship said at least one of the boats had no quota assigned. Watson
and other officers on the Irwin said they found the Tunisian’s
behaviour suspicious. But a man claiming to be an ICCAT inspector
radioed from on board, and the Sea Shepherd activists could not
determine for certain that the activities were illegal.

On Saturday evening, the two ships entered Libyan waters. The
Brigitte Bardot went ahead and radioed that it had found some
possible targets.

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Battle at sea: Tunisian fishermen attack environmentalist boat by throwing heavy chain links