The Age
The outcast super-trawler Margiris has found a new place to go – one of the world’s most troubled jack mackerel fisheries in the South Pacific.
Banned by the federal government because of doubts over its impact on Australia’s small pelagic fishery, the Margiris left Australia in March, and was this week tracked down off Chile.
The giant factory-freezer ship anchored near the port city of Talcahuano before heading out to sea, according to Greenpeace.
Jack mackerel catches in the region peaked at nearly 5 million tonnes a year around 1995 before collapsing in what fisheries scientists regard as a classic case of overfishing – much of it by super-trawlers.