JUNEAU, Alaska — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Friday that, in cooperation with federal and international partners, it has seized a fishing vessel and crew suspected of large-scale illegal high-seas drift net fishing in the North Pacific Ocean and is delivering them to the Alaska Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Law Enforcement for the investigation.
Renegade large-scale high-seas drift net fishing indiscriminately kills massive amounts of fish and other marine life such as whales and turtles by means of enormous nets suspended for miles in open water. The practice is universally condemned and is a significant threat to ocean ecosystems and to the food and economic security of nations that rely on fishery resources.
Acting on vessel sighting information provided by a maritime patrol airplane from the Fisheries Agency of Japan, Sept. 7, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro launched its MH-65 Dolphin helicopter and crew and located the fishing vessel Bangun Perkasa with 22 fishermen aboard, approximately 2,600 miles southwest of Kodiak, Alaska.
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