How to Help Stop the 'Longliners'

by Sail-World Cruising on 4 Mar 2008 Dolphins, Albatross and Turtles. The long line fishing boats are killing them all as they indiscriminately fish the Pacific Ocean - but now if you are on a cruising yacht you can help report the activities of these marauders of the sea.

There's nothing more magnificent for the cruising sailor than the cry of 'Dolphins'. In large pods, or small, they play around the bow of the boat, and, if you're lucky, turn on their side to stare up at you. Then there are the turtles, those great clumsy land creatures who become so graceful in the water. And the albatross, sitting as placidly in rough waters hundreds of mile from land as a duck on a backyard pond.

But the long line fishing boats are killing them, so that the ocean crossing cruising boats are seeing fewer and fewer of the once frequent marine life.

What is a 'long-liner'? Long-line fishing is a commercial fishing technique that uses hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line.

Swordfish, tuna, halibut, sablefish,Patagonian toothfish and countless other species are commonly targeted by long-liners. Large commercial long-liners in certain fisheries of the Bering Sea and North Pacific generally run over 2500 hand-baited hooks on a single series of connected lines many miles in length. Long-lines can be set to hang near the surface, and is controversial because of the by-catch.

Some gear modifications have been developed on some fishing ships to deter birds. However, gear modifications do not eliminate by-catch of many species, including dolphins and turtles, which are caught and killed but then discarded, and the controversy continues.

In March 2006, the Hawaii long-line swordfish fishing season was closed due to excessive loggerhead sea turtle by-catch. The loggerhead turtle is an endangered species.

Now you have the opportunity to report this fishing activity. If you see suspicious fishing activity you can report it to C2C, a superyacht agent on the west coast of the USA, via their Captain Drewelow, just by filling in a downloadable form, who will forward it to activists who are working in the field.

If you don't have internet on your boat, download the form now, and take it with you when you go cruising.

Click here to download the form, and then send the information to info@yachtaidglobal.org

Editor's Note: We have had a large number of comments about this story, both for and against the Longliners. To read more about the problem in the North Atlantic, go to this website: http://www.npfmc.com/