Sea Shepherd Global rescues crew from sunken poaching boat near equator

Sea Shepherd Global, which was founded as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society by Paul Watson, is not known to be a friend of ocean poachers.

But according to a news release issued this morning, two of its vessels—the Bob Barker and Sam Simon—came the rescue of 40 crew onboard a fishing boat near Sao Tome off the west coast of Africa.

The environmental group describes the Thunder as a "notorious poaching vessel" that scoops up vulnerable toothfish in an unregulated and illegal fishery in the Southern Ocean.

“When my Chief Engineer boarded the Thunder in the hours leading up to the sinking, he was able to confirm that there were clear signs that the vessel was intentionally scuttled," Peter Hammarstedt, captain of the Bob Barker, said in the news release. "Usually when a vessel is sinking, the captain will close all hatches so as to maintain buoyancy. However, on the Thunder, the reverse was done—doors and hatches were tied open and the fishhold was opened. It is an incredibly suspicious situation, to say the least.”

Nobody was injured and all crew members were able to escape on life rafts.

The Bob Barker was in pursuit of the Thunder for four months, but Sea Shepherd Global's news release did not suggest that the environmental group was responsible for its sinking.

The group stated that the chase went from the Southern Ocean to the Indian and Atlantic oceans. On Christmas Day, the Sam Simon began retrieving "illegal fishing gear abandoned by the Thunder", which included "more than 72 kilometres of illegal gillnet...and over 1,400 fish, weighing a total of 45,000 kilograms".

It was all part of Sea Shepherd Global's campaign known as Operation Icefish.

Watson, a former Vancouver resident and former Georgia Straight writer, summed up his philosophy in the 2013 book Interview with a Pirate.

“We protect the interests of our clients,” Watson said in the book. “Our clients are not people; they are whales and other marine species that are exploited and exterminated to serve the cultural and economic interests of humans.”

He noted in the book that more species of plants and animals will disappear  in the first 65 years of this century than in the last 65 million years.

In 2013, Watson stepped down as captain of the SS Steve Irwin and as president of Sea Shepherd U.S. This came after an appellate court decision in Washington state issued an injunction prohibiting the society from getting within 450 metres of Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean.