There is outrage in Papua New Guinea over signs that the Filipino tuna fishing fleet is catching dolphins against the law.
This follows the emergence of a four-minute video from PNG’s Manus Province showing the crew on a purse seine vessel, the Red Robin 88 (previously Discovery 101), hauling in dead dolphins from its nets.
Manus local Jonathan Semin told RNZ Pacific that his community is extremely concerned about what they have seen in the video.
“There were many dolphins, which I was very angry about, when I saw that there were dead dolphins in the net.
“They are killing our dolphins. We should be protecting them. Why are these fishing boats coming into our sea and doing this to our dolphins and our sea species?”
The Red Robin 88 is a locally based foreign fishing vessel owned by Frabelle Fishing Corporation, a Philippine-owned company long-established in PNG waters.
PNG’s Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources Jelta Wong told RNZ Pacific he was expecting a report on the incident from the National Fisheries Authority’s Surveillance Unit.
“It’s illegal. I am investigating this. They will be penalised heavily, I’m sifting through the evidence,” Wong said.
A screengrab from a video from PNG’s Manus Province showing crew on a purse seine vessel, the Discovery 101, hauling in dead dolphins from its nets.
Photo: Screengrab
A large number of dolphins live in the sea around Manus Province, where they are highly valued by local communities as sentient beings who help people lost at sea find their way home.
“We love them, they are part of us,” Semin said.
“We like to look after various species like dolphin and others sea animals like that, so that will make our people very, very angry when they come across this video.
He said that as well as showing the vessel catching huge amounts of tuna, the footage of foreigners pulling out dead dolphins from the net was offensive to PNG people.
“That’s what makes me very cross, because we love dolphins, we preserve dolphins in our areas, and when this fishing boat come and act like this, this is not good, this is not right at all.”
