New Canadian patrol targets remote high seas to protect salmon

A federal fisheries vessel sailed north this September, some12,000 nautical miles (22,200 kilometres)to the Aleutian Islands, the first Canadian patrol of its kind in the North Pacific.

This newly outfitted Canadian Coast Guard vessel, the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, is part of Canada's effort to ramp up monitoring of the North Pacific to protect salmon that may migrate into international waters near Russia and Alaska.

The patrol vessel sailed from Victoria to Japan, then north in September ona two-month mission near the Aleutian Islandsoff the coast of Alaska, where a flotilla of industrial vessels gather, their lights appearing as bright as a small city in satellite images.

"The radiance of these lightsis observed from space," saidsenior Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) officer Dustin De Gagne,

The government earmarked $46 million to combat illegal fishing and outfit a special patrol vessel to ply the North Pacific, both to protect fish and keep an eye on remote zones using high seas patrols, flyovers and satellite surveillance.

Last year, the first high seas mission was announced, using a chartered boat. Fisheryofficers were able to board foreign vessels based on theNorth Pacific Fisheries Commission's High Seas Boarding and Inspection Act.

"Only in 2018 didinternational law change to allow the boarding and a similar inspection regime in the Pacific," De Gagne said of an inspection regime that had already been happening in the Atlantic under a similar but different international law.

Now, for the first time, Canadian coast guard and fisheries enforcement crews are making patrols in their own dedicated vessel.

The United Nations estimates that between $10 and $23 billion USworth of illegal fishing is occurring ininternational waters each year.

And there are concernsthat it is puttingsome of Canada's fishing stocks at risk.

De Gagne saysthat just sailing near the fishing fleets has prompted some to move, and "just being present has a great deterrence effect."

"There's approximately 40 million square kilometres of high seas where these vessels can fish, and only a handful of patrol vessels will ever go out there in a year," he said.

TheSir Wilfrid Laurierhas about 50crew: 20 armed fishery officers, dozens of Canadian Coast Guard crew and two U.S. Coast Guard officers. There are concerns about illegal fishing fleets using drift nets that can capture100 tonnes of fish at a time and about the unintended bycatch of salmon, a species already stressed by a changing climate and higher water temperatures.

Scientists want to know more about how industrial fishing fleets affect salmon returning to Canadian rivers and streams. De Gagne, a senior officer with the Department of Fisheries international enforcement program, sailed to the Aleutian islands with a crew on a chartered ship in 2023.

Now, he's supporting the crew on a newly outfitted DFO vessel from Victoria, B.C.

The hope is thenew patrol will helpbolster international co-operation and create better regulations to ensure both fish and the ocean environment are protected.

The crew near Alaska hails ships and then boards them to gatherinformation and data, swabbingvesselsto test whether salmon were present.

Dangers at sea

So far this season, the patrol has performed one crew change and resupplied in Yokohama, Japan, returning inheavy weather, that included the remnants of a tropical storm.

By Oct 17, Canadian fishery officershad boarded 15 foreign vessels, finding a dozen infractions, including dozens of shark fins and carcasses, contravening international finning requirements, improperly marked vessels, and failures to report bycatch and comply with vessel monitoring requirements.

They are set to return to port in Victoriaby month's end.

TheDFO has spent $19 millionon surveillance, including aerial and satellite monitoring and one initial short voyage in a chartered ship in the North Pacific in thepast three years, funding for which ends in 2026.

The current patrol is 250 kilometres south of Russia's exclusive economiczone the invisible maritime border that extends from a country's shorelineand denotes its jurisdiction over those waters. The area is often one ofwild seas with swells up to five-metre high making it dangerous, sometimes impossible, to board avessel.

But when it's calm enough, De Gagne says the crew hails ships with flags from various countries, including China, Korea, the Island of Taiwan and Japan. Once on board, they climb sometimes-sketchy ladders into dark holds to perform inspections.

Pacific plays catch-up

De Gagne said, historically, Canadian officials seldom ventured beyond Canada's 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone puttingthem years and several ships behind enforcement efforts in the Atlantic until last year when they senta chartered patrol shipto the North Pacific.

Fisheryofficers in Atlantic Canada have been boarding foreign vessels outside the country's 200 nautical mile limitfor decades under the authority of the 1979 Northwest Atlantic Fishery Organization (NAFO). This came after industrial fishing in the Northwest Atlantic depleted cod stocks.

In the last three years, University of Guelph political ecologist Jennifer Silver says the work being done in Canadian enforcement, which now includes the North Pacific fishery patrols, ispositioningCanada as a leader, shining a light on darker aspects of industrial fishing, from over-fishing toexploitative labour practices.

"It's giving Canada and others an opportunity just to see these parts of the ocean that are very vast and often not visited. So to get a sense for what's going on out there," said Silver.

"Fish don't abide by international boundaries."

Canada also shares data on "dark"vessels ships that deactivate their transmitters in areas that have included theIsland of Taiwan, the Philippines and even Ecuador to protect the Galapagos islands, according to DFO.

"Countries are turning their eyes outwards to their own exclusive economic zones and beyond to try and understand what's going on and how to better keep an eye on them. It has to do withsovereignty,"said Silver.

In Juneau, Alaska, Cmdr. Joseph Anthony, the deputy chief of maritime law enforcement for the U.S. Coast Guard, says thisdata sharing has been"game-changing."

He describes the new North Pacific patrol as "groundbreaking," adding that it keeps eyes on remote zones of the high seasclose to Russia. At certain times of the year, he says, Canada's new ship is "our eyes on the water," keeping watch on fishing, ship movements authorized by Russia and any trouble on the horizon.