On Monday, October 28th, the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Sir Wilfrid Laurier made a safe return to port in Victoria after finishing a year-long mission of patrolling the north Pacific.
During their mission, the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) led crew patrolled around 20,000 square kilometres of ocean to coordinate fisheries enforcement to protect global fish stocks.
While at sea during this mission, DFO officers say they conducted inspection of 15 fishing vessels under international law.
According to DFO, these searches led to officers finding illegally harvested shark fins.
Additionally, they determined a number of the ships they searched were “dark vessels”, which are vessels that have turned their monitoring systems off.
DFO says they also found some ships to be fishing during a closed season, having unreported catch on board and documented instances of marine pollution.
This DFO operation had support from Canadian Coast Guard officers located on land in Hokkaido, Japan—working with Japanese and South Korean fishery officers.
This collaboration allowed officers to conduct daily aerial surveillance of over 50,400 nautical miles.
Over 34 patrols which visually inspected 407 vessels, fishery officers say they found evidence of shark finning, targeted harvest of dolphins, pollution incidents and vessel marking violations.
Now, DFO officers are continuing to aid international fishery agencies in following up with suspected perpetrators.
