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<\/a>INTERPOL and Sea Shepherd activists have joined the hunt for a trio of pirate fishing vess\u00adels flying false flags which are running amok in Australian Antarctic waters. <\/strong><\/p>\nTasmanian Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson yesterday said the ships appeared to be just outside Australian territorial waters, southeast of Macquarie Island.<\/p>\n
He said it was time for the Australian Government to step in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crunch time, we\u2019re being scrutinised by the international community and by the organised crime gangs who profit from these illegal and destructive fishing activities,\u201d Senator Whish-Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no better time than now for this Government to uphold its election promise and send a patrol vessel to protect Australia\u2019s interests and to show the world Australia is ser\u00adious about upholding its res\u00adponsibilities in the Southern Ocean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Interpol yesterday issued a \u201cPurple Notice\u201d requesting the help of all 190 member nations in tracking the notorious trio after a boarding bid by the New Zealand Navy this week was thwarted by rough Southern Ocean conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) vessels, which were sighted travelling together in December 2014, have all changed their names, national registration and other identifying characteristics on multiple occasions to try and avoid detection,\u201d the inter\u00adnational police organisation said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween 6 and 13 January, a Royal New Zealand Naval Patrol spotted the vessels \u2014 the Yongding, the Kunlun and the Songhua \u2014 hauling gill nets laden with toothfish in an area regulated by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources where such fishing methods are prohibited.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ownership of the rogue vessels is a mystery although they are reputed to be poaching endangered species in protected waters on behalf of a Spanish criminal syndicate.<\/p>\n
Sea Shepherd announced plans to help chase the vessels on the high seas.<\/p>\n
Senator Whish-Wilson said Sea Shepherd was now the only deterrent to the illegal fishers, given the Australian Government had not followed through with its Southern Ocean patrols<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INTERPOL and Sea Shepherd activists have joined the hunt for a trio of pirate fishing vess\u00adels flying false flags which are running amok in Australian Antarctic waters. Tasmanian Greens Senator… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,128],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}