Mexican fishermen burn boat, demand environmentalists out
Dozens of fishermen have burned a boat as part of a threat to force out a ship operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in Mexico’s Gulf of California. Sea Shepherd has been removing illegal and abandoned nets that endanger the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise. Fishermen in the town of San Felipe painted the name of the Sea Shepherd on an empty, open fishing boat they burned Sunday. They threatened to remove the conservationists’ ship themselves if the government doesn’t. “Just as they are judging us fishermen, we will judge all the environmentalists,” said Sunshine Rodriguez, a leader of the local fishing cooperative in San Felipe, Baja California. “We aren’t going to just sit around.” A speaker at Sunday’s protest — which drew hundreds of onlookers and supporters at San Felipe’s main waterfront boulevard— said over a loudspeaker, “I’m giving them (the government) five days to get this boat out of our territorial waters, or we will do it ourselves. Read the story here 17:03
Wow! Fishermen with balls. American fishermen would be well served to take a lesson from our brothers south of the border.