Australian Navy Fires On Illegal Indonesian Trawlersff

Australian Navy patrol boats have fired warning shots on Indonesian fishing trawlers working illegally off the Northern Territory coast.

Twenty-seven vessels have been boarded and 240 crew arrested in the past week as Australia steps up the campaign against illegal fishing. Patrol boats opened fire with automatic weapons after two Indonesian boats refused to stop.

Fifteen of those captured are large “ice” boats, which can store tons of fresh tuna, Federal Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald said. Many of the boats had satellite navigation. Several were “linked” via sophisticated radar and communications equipment to avoid surveillance and capture. Two of the boats were carrying more than one ton of tuna and large quantities of shark fin.

Senator Macdonald said last night 27 crew members were to be charged with fishing illegally in Australian waters.

A further 109 are being questioned. “These illegal fishermen are becoming increasingly brazen and well-organised and we will not turn a blind eye to this practice,” Senator Macdonald said. “We are talking about large-scale commercial operations rather than simply subsistence fishing.”

Last month that a foreign boat had been spotted fishing about 3.5km off the Territory coast, well inside the 200 nautical mile limit. It escaped capture.

A second boat also escaped last month after warning shots were fired across its bow. And this month taken photos of an Indonesian fishing boat found stranded in a creek on the Territory coast, about 20km from Maningrida.

Of the 27 boats captured this week as part of Operation Clearwater, six have been taken to Darwin, 19 to Gove and two have been destroyed.