Factory trawlers have Ireland-sized impact off B.C.’s coast, investigation claims
Over the past 15 years, a wave of factory trawling vessels has quietly arrived on British Columbia’s coastline, often targeting ecologically rich regions off at the edge of the continental shelf in direct competition with endangered killer whales, a multi-year investigation has found. Released Tuesday, the Pacific Wild-led investigation analyzed 13 years of satellite data, information that continuously transmits a ship’s position, speed, course and identity through their Automatic Identification System. An analysis of the AIS data shows nine industrial vessels, many with checkered histories fishing now depleted stocks in the North Atlantic, travelled through the Panama Canal between 2009 and 2024. Now re-flagged as Canadian ships, the vessels have targeted a number of highly valued Pacific fish species, like pollock and hake. Ian McAllister, a co-founder of Pacific Wild, said the arrival of the factory vessels came as the groundfish trawl fishery has undergone a transformation from largely owner-operator vessels to corporation-owned quotas. “They just started showing up on this coast without any public input. They just started appearing here,” he said. Photos, Links, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 16:55
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