Defending Marine Wildlife | Explorer
NARRATOR: It's the Sam Simon and its crew that are confronting the issues here head on. Of course, their day was a bit frustrating when you see this overwhelming amount of nets that's out there, that there's still the fishermen going out and laying more nets.
NARRATOR: The Sam Simon's primary weapon in their fight against these gillnets is what they call a phantom ray. The ray is set for seven, eight meters.
NARRATOR: The ray is dropped into the water at a set depth. It drags a grappling hook along the sea floor. When the hook catches a net, a thin breaker line attached to the ship snaps. This releases the ray and marks the net's location with a buoy.
MAN (ON RADIO): Sam Simon, Sam Simon, this is Viking. I can confirm for the net. I reckon there's a couple of totoaba in the water there. There must be six, seven carcasses of totoaba floating by us right now. I guess the deal is that they cut the bladders out as quick as possible and throw the rest in the sea. Now we're going to launch the boat and go find out whether it is a totoaba net, or a long line, or any illegal fishing gear that is in these waters. And then we're going to retrieve it.
- Can I come with you? - Of course.
NARRATOR: The sea shepherd team have managed to scoop up the remnants of that net. And we're on our way to find out what's in it. Surrounded by dead carcasses of totoaba that have been mutilated, its twin bladders taken out. They're everywhere.
PIA KLEMP: One, two. Wow, that's tough, huh?
PIA KLEMP: Yeah, one, two.
NARRATOR: But the totoaba are far from the only victims of these nets. And the nature of the sea, there could be anything in this net. We have been finding everything from sea lions to dolphins to hammerhead sharks. Not too long ago, we saw a whale. And it was almost like an hourglass for how much the net was strangling the whale like halfway through. So it really is a whole load of species that are caught up in this trade for the totoaba. Right? The net doesn't really distinguish who it's going to catch. So whichever animal swims through these waters is sentenced to death.
Oh, here comes the shark.
PIA KLEMP: Oh, no.
GIACOMO GIORGI: Oh, the hammerhead. Oh, Chris, it feels pretty soft.
GIACOMO GIORGI: Is it still alive?
PIA KLEMP: I don't think so. Come here, baby. We are wiping out sharks from our oceans for their fins. In Asia, they eat shark fin soup. And what happens is that a lot of fishing vessels catch a shark, cut their fin, and then throw back their bodies. And finding a dead shark, a dead hammerhead in this net is really heartbreaking.
NARRATOR: But the heartbreak here isn't reserved for marine life alone. As the Sam Simon continues its mission to remove illegal gillnets, the nearby fishing towns suffocate.
[music playing]