Yesterday afternoon we'd boarded the vessel as part of our ongoing enforcement efforts. We found convincing evidence of tampering with the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), which led to an order from the Kiribati government for the boat to remain where it was until they could further investigate. Kiribati did allow the ship to set its lines, which actually worked to our advantage as fishing through the night would make it more difficult for them to pull a runner and head for the high seas. It also gave us a rare opportunity in our enforcement capacity to spend a night on the longliner and document the operation as they hauled their lines and landed their catch.

It's more than a bit intimidating to be on a ship where very little English is spoken, where they aren't exactly happy to see you and their ultimate intentions aren't known. My question was, how much of a barrier did our presence provide if they wanted to make a break for it, as Kiribati's fisheries enforcement agency is far from strong and they have very little resources available to them. We were pretty much counting on the humanity of Shin Yung's captain and crew to conclude that a valuable fish stock wouldn't be worth throwing overboard their undesirable guests.

They started hauling lines around 8:00 pm. The fishing was a bit slow at the start, but soon they had a run on tuna, mostly Yellowfin. The fish ranged in size between 40 - 100 pounds, and the process from line to onboard freezer was efficient and brutal. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that fish at the market counter will never look the same. By the time the sun came up and they completed their haul, they had taken in over 2000 pounds of fish. Our photographer and videographer got some excellent footage, with powerful images of bycatch that included sharks and a turtle snared in their lines. The Shin Yung finished hauling its lines around 7:00 am, and an inflable was sent from the Esperanza with a replacement party for those of us who'd stayed onboard.

In the end, the Kiribati government didn't take action, so we were once again left without the arrest we're looking for to define illegal fishing in the Pacific. But more and more we're finding that, with the boats we're inspecting, the amount of fish onboard and time at sea don't add up, which points to undocumented offloading and unreported fish.

What we seem to be finding is that pirate fishing in this region isn't like what Greenpeace found off the coast of Africa last spring, where the vessels were clearly illegal, inhumane and barely seaworthy. Illegal operations here are more under the surface, and one has to dig a bit to find them. Comparing it to illegal fishing in Africa is a bit like comparing gang looting to white-collar crime. In many ways that makes the problem here harder to address, yet it's no less destructive of a practice. It's estimated that up to $400 million in fish is taken illegally from the Pacific each year, and until that's thwarted the effort to stop overfishing in this region will be almost impossible.