Fisheries Agency News

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has invited the USCGC Myrtle Hazard (WPC 1139) to join their lead in maritime operations to combat illegal fishing and safeguard maritime resources during August 2023.This marks the first time a joint patrol effort will be executed at sea since the signing and ratification of the recent bilateral defense agreement between PNG and the US, which allows the US to embark shipriders from PNG agencies aboard the ship to conduct at sea boardings on other vessels operating in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ).The move emphasizes PNG’s commitment to maritime domain awareness…

Navy vessels from Australia and New Zealand will be exempt from a temporary ban on foreign ships entering the ports of the Solomon Islands, the Pacific island nation's prime minister told parliament on Monday.Foreign military vessels responding to a request for assistance from the Solomon Islands government would also be exempt, Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare said.The Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China in April, which a leaked draft said allows the Chinese navy to replenish in Honiara…

A United States Coast Guard vessel was unable to enter Solomon Islands for a routine port call because the Solomon Islands government did not respond to a request for it to refuel and provision, a U.S. official said.The islands' government did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment. The Solomon Islands has had a tense relationship with the United States and its allies since striking a security pact with China in May.The USCGC Oliver Henry was on patrol for illegal fishing in the South Pacific for a regional fisheries agency when it failed to obtain entry to refuel at Honiara…

Russian investigators were conducting searches at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) after Saturday's oil spill near the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, the regional branch of the investigative committee said on Thursday.Russia opened a criminal investigation on the spill, which occurred during loading of a tanker moored to an offshore floating jetty. According to CPC, a crucial part of the jetty broke and caused the accident."In connection with the criminal case, representatives of the Investigative Committee are interviewing CPC employees and examining documents. The consortium provides the necessary assistance to the investigation team…

A new fishery inspection vessel ordered by the governmental Danish Fisheries Agency and under construction at the Hvide Sande Shipyard in Denmark will be equipped with propulsion systems from German manufacturer SCHOTTEL.The new vessel will be driven by two SCHOTTEL EcoPellers type SRE 360 CP (1,500 kW each) featuring a propeller diameter of 2.3 meters. Latter ones will be driven by electric motors. According to SCHOTTEL, the thrusters allow economical operation of the newly built…

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Washington Island (WPB 1331), a 110-foot Island Class patrol boat, was decommissioned after nearly 30 years of service as part of recapitalization efforts during a ceremony at Naval Base Guam, Wednesday.Rear Adm. Kevin E. Lunday, commander, Coast Guard 14th District presided over the ceremony. Washington's years of service included numerous law enforcement cases, safety and security enforcement patrols, dignitary and Naval security operations, and a…

Japan rescued about 60 North Korean crew members from a fishing boat that sank after it collided with a Japanese patrol boat that was chasing it out of Japanese waters, the Japan Coast Guard said on Monday.All the crew members that abandoned the fishing boat were rescued and handed over to another North Korean ship, the Coast Guard said.The collision between the North Korean vessel and a patrol ship from Japan's Fisheries Agency took place 350 km (220 miles) northwest of Noto peninsula in central Japan.Following the collision shortly after 9:00 a.m. (0000 GMT), the Fisheries Agency and Coast Guard mobilised seven ships and aircraft to search for North Korean crew members.The Coast Guard did not give details about how the two vessels crashed in the Sea of Japan…

Japan will not lower its guard over its whaling even though its biggest foe - the Sea Shepherd conservation group - has said it will not send ships to disrupt its fleet this year, a government official said on Tuesday. Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said in a statement on Monday the group’s limited resources made it difficult to compete with the military technology Japan employs to guard its whaling fleet and it would not send ships to the Southern Ocean this year. But an official at Japan’s Fisheries Agency was skeptical.

“No new fishing vessel has been (added) during the period,” says the email we get from Japan’s largest seafood company, Maruha Nichiro Corp. A year earlier, they had bought shares in New Zealand outfit, Sanford, which had just chartered a Nordic-looking vessel. Seafood rival, Nissui, had just done the same, buying New Zealand and Nordic. That all happened after the Naval Architect’s Society of Japan said a vessel based on the Icelandic design of Reykjavik’s Navis was its Ship of the Year.

The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy completed an 18-day joint mission in the Central and South Pacific under the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative to combat transnational crimes, enforce fisheries laws and enhance regional security. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment 103 from Pacific Tactical Law Enforcement Team embarked USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) and conducted 16 fisheries enforcement boardings with the assistance of the ship’s visit, board, search and seizure team and law enforcement ship riders from Tuvalu and Nauru.

The ocean has gotten noisier for decades, with man-made racket from oil drilling, shipping and construction linked to signs of stress in marine life that include beached whales and baby crabs with scrambled navigational signals. The United States aims to change that as a federal agency prepares a plan that could force reductions in noise-making activities, including oil exploration, dredging and shipping off the nation's coast. "We've been worried about ocean noise for decades, since the 1970s," said Richard Merrick, chief science adviser to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fisheries agency and a key author of the agency's more detailed 10-year plan to be released publicly later this year.

USCGC Sequoia (WLB-215), homeported in Apra Harbor, Guam, is scheduled to arrive in Saipan today, for a port visit before continuing aids to navigation operations in Western Oceania. The Sequoia will be open to the public for tours Sunday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the Port of Saipan in Tanapag Harbor. All children must be accompanied by an adult. Pets are not allowed aboard the cutter. Coast Guard crewmembers will be standing by to answer questions about Sequoia. The Sequoia conducted fisheries enforcement patrols, supporting forum fisheries agency operations and conducting aids to navigation within Western Oceania in support of Operation Tui Moana and Island Chief 2016.

Japan and Taiwan have agreed to amend fishing regulations in a fishing pact related to waters off a cluster of Taiwan-claimed, Japan-administered islands in the East China Sea. The changes to the rules are to allow for freer fishing operations around the Diaoyutai Islands, while avoiding friction between vessels. During the fourth meeting of the Taiwan-Japan fishing commission, the two sides agreed to make some amendments to the fishing regulations applied to Taiwanese and Japanese fishing vessels operating in a designated area in the East China Sea where both are allowed to operate freely, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

A Taiwanese ship carrying 49 crew, including Filipinos and Indonesians, has vanished in the remote South Atlantic Ocean without any sign of a mayday call but shortly after its skipper reported it was taking on water. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said that it has been helping with efforts to search for the ship. The Hsiang Fu Chun, a 700-tonne squid fishing vessel, lost contact with its owners "soon" after reporting that water was leaking on to the deck at around 3:00 am on February 26, officials said. The boat sailed off from Kaohsiung in January to the sea area 1,700 sea miles east of the Falkland Islands for fishing and was due to return in May.

The Australian Defence Force mission against illegal fishing in the Pacific is progressing well after the successful completion of multi-national Operation RAI BALANG. Operation RAI BALANG is the first of four annual regional monitoring, control and surveillance missions involving Pacific Island nations. The operation counters illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the area. Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Ash Power said an Australian AP-3C Orion provided surveillance of 60 per cent of Palau’s exclusive economic zones in an eight hour sortie. “This intelligence, once analysed by the Regional Fisheries Surveillance Centre…

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.

PD Ports has received Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) consent from the Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA) in relation to the QEII berth redevelopment at Teesport. This formal consent together with its associated licences enables PD Ports to proceed with the construction of the new 260 metre long berth, which is an integral part of MGT Power’s Tees Renewable Energy Plant development at the Port. The new berth will accommodate vessels up to 240 metres long and 38 metres wide…