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Comment by throwaway2037 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2037

    > some countries with shadow fleets

I never saw this term used for fishing boats. Do you have any countries in mind? And what exactly is "shadow"?

    > Whales are dying because they are malnourished and that is an indicator that there’s barely anything left.

I assume you are talking about the recent deaths of Pacific Gray whales.[1] They are dying because climate change has depleted their primary food source in the Arctic. They are not dying due to overfishing by humans.

[1] https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24052026/pacific-gray-wha...

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It's always China: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CHINA-ARGENTINA/FISHING/gkp...

As long as they are 200 nautical miles offshore, then it is fair game. That Reuters article reads like: "China did something; it must be bad."

They're normally called a shadow fleet because they turn off their transponders when they head into territorial waters.

First of all, just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it’s good.

But more importantly, specifically Chinese fishing vessels aren’t exactly innocent either. They go dark to go and fish in waters where fishing isn’t allowed including eco sensitive zones. Part of the problem with the dark fleet is “how much they fish”. Claiming 200 vessels are fishing while allowing 1000 vessels will obviously lead to overfishing.

Then there is the whole “illegal fishing” including but not limited to hunting sharks and other endangered species, using banned fishing practices, threatening local fishermen across the coast of Africa to corner parts of the fishing grounds etc.

All of this is well documented. So it’s not about China bad, it’s about them skirting the rules.

    > But more importantly, specifically Chinese fishing vessels aren’t exactly innocent either. They go dark to go and fish in waters where fishing isn’t allowed including eco sensitive zones.

Do you think that Japan, Korea, Taiwan does not do exactly the same? I believe they do. However, they are part of the "Free World", so we give them a free pass.

They are wrong too. But my comment was specifically addressing your argument that criticism only exists because it’s China and not because they are wrong. Whataboutism isn’t a great defense here. Everyone doing it needs to not do it. My parent comment that started this thread talks about everyone and not just one country:

> The idea that international waters are available for anyone and everyone to exploit is just wild.

Edit: Order of magnitude also matters here. Chinese fishing fleet is much larger than all the nations you mentioned combined. Any nation taking that much from the oceans which are a globally shared resource and a lifeline for the planet should receive scrutiny and pushback, regardless of who they are.

“In the few cases where dark vessels were directly counted by satellite, China’s share approached 100%”

To the surprise of absolutely no one.

Shadow fleet is anyone without a transponder reporting their location

If they are dying of hunger then the most likely cause is overfishing, far far ahead of climate change.

I can see from your reply that you did not bother to read the article that I shared.

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