Farley Mowat (ship, 1992)
 The Farley as Block Island in service with the US Coast Guard.
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The Farley Mowat is a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship . It is used for the direct actions of the organization against whaling and illegal fishing. Since 2015, the ship has been part of the ongoing Operation Milagro campaign to protect the endangered California harbor porpoise ( Phocoena sinus ) and is used for patrols in the Gulf of California .
history
The patrol ship entered service with the US Coast Guard as USCG Block Island in February 1991 . Previously it was built as the 44th of 49 island-class ships at Bollinger Shipyards, Lockport, Louisiana. The ship was stationed at the Fort Macon coast guard base and carried out mainly rescue missions and fisheries controls from there . The duties also included law compliance and surveillance operations, as well as operations against drug smugglers who took the ship to Haiti . After 23 years of service, the ship was decommissioned in a festive ceremony on March 15, 2014. The ship was then transferred to Baltimore , Maryland , where it was demilitarized and remained until it was sold.
Acquired by Sea Shepherd
In January 2015 Sea Shepherd acquired the ship and the sister ship USCG Pea Island and renamed it Farley Mowat . Both ships left Baltimore in the spring for Key West , where first the Farley Mowat and then the Jules Verne were overhauled. In the fall of 2015, the ship was placed in a dry dock in Tampa , Florida , where the overhaul work was completed. The ship is the second ship in Sea Shepherd history to be named after the Canadian writer Farley Mowat . The first ship to be named Mowats had been in service with Sea Shepherd until 2008.
Commitment to Sea Shepherd
The ship was used in a campaign to protect the California harbor porpoise ( Phocoena sinus ) (Vaquita) as part of Operation Milagro . The critically endangered species is endemic to this sea area . Volunteers from the organization collected illegal gillnets in the Gulf of California that the marine mammals get entangled in. From January to the end of April 2016, the Farley Mowat supported Sea Shepherd USA's sailing ship, the Martin Sheen , in the second year of the campaign.
After the Mexican government gave Sea Shepherd permission to confiscate illegal nets and longlines, the Mowat and Sheen crews confiscated a total of 42 illegal gillnets and 16 longlines. After a brief stop in San Diego followed by a dry dock in northern Mexico, the Farley Mowat returned to the Gulf of California in the summer for Operation Guardian Angel in the Gulf of California. Outside the fishing season, the crew searched for abandoned fishing gear and ghost nets that drift through the area as deadly traps for marine animals. From December 2016, Sam Simon supported the Mowat in the third year of the Milagro campaign.
On January 25, the crew of the Fairly Mowat rescued an overboard Mexican fisherman whom they took on board. A second fisherman who went overboard could not be found by either the Sea Shepherd ships or the Mexican Coast Guard. In early April, the Mowat and the Simon were escorted by five Mexican navy vessels, as local fishermen threatened to attack the Sea Shepherd ships with 200 small boats, known as pangas. With the help of the police, the fishermen only managed to lower a quarter of the boats into the water. None of the boats reached the Sea Shepherd ships. During a demonstration a few days earlier, a panga with the words "Sea Shepherd" on it was burned as a threat. During the campaign, which lasted until the end of May, Sea Shepherd ships discovered 593 illegally operating small boats. Together with the Sam Simon, the Sea Shepherd ships confiscated 233 illegal fishing nets, including 189 totoaba, 27 shrimp nets and 17 longlines. The nets were made unusable and given to the organization "Parley for the Oceans" for recycling. There were 1,195 dead animals in the nets, including sharks , dolphins , whales , turtles , seals and sea lions . 796 animals were released alive. In addition, the ships pulled 160 ghost nets from the Sea of Cortes. After a short stay in dry dock , the Mowat spent the summer of 2017 in the Gulf again. As part of Operation Ghostnet, the Sea Shepherd ship pulled abandoned nets again from the sea. For the fourth year of the Milagro campaign, the Mowat will receive support from the sister ship John Paul DeJoira from December and from the Sharpie from spring 2018 .
literature
- Peter Heller: We step in. The fight of Paul Watson against the world's whaling fleets. Translated by Harald Stadler (The whale warriors). Marebuch, Hamburg 2008, pp. 18 - 33 (about this ship)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Sea Shepherd Worldwide Fleet ( Memento of 18 February 2017 Internet Archive ) official website Sea Shepherd Global, accessed on February 19 2017th
- ^ A b Sea Shepherd Sends Two Ships to Defend Vaquita in Mexico . In: World Maritime News . ( worldmaritimenews.com [accessed November 29, 2017]).
- ↑ US Coast Guard Patrol Craft , HMC James T. Flynn, Jr. USNR (ret), 2012, accessed February 19, 2017.
- ↑ Cutter Block Island retires , The Daily News Jacksonville, March 15, 2014, accessed February 19, 2017.
- ↑ Two former USCG Island Class cutters bought by Sea Shepherd , Marinelog, June 3, 2015, accessed February 19, 2017.
- ^ Sandra Dibble: Sea Shepherd Society offers tours of vessel in vaquita porpoise campaign . In: sandiegouniontribune.com . ( sandiegouniontribune.com [accessed November 29, 2017]).
- ↑ Sea Shepherd Crew Rescues Fleeing Fishermen , January 29, 2017, The Maritime Executive, accessed February 16, 2017.
- ^ Mexican fishermen burn boat, demand environmentalists out , March 27, 2017, Fox News, accessed July 24, 2017.
- ↑ Mexican vaquita porpoise pushed toward extinction by illicit fish bladder trade , The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 12, 2017, Sandra Dibble, accessed July 24, 2017.
- ↑ Environmental group in campaign to save vaquita porpoise , November 14, 2017, Radio Canada International, Marc Montgomery, accessed January 14, 2018.
