Trawling in the rouse

[Far side]

On the wayout off shore yesterday while going down the small boat passage there was a trawler draging the rouse heading west well inside the the HPZ202 zone.

One thing that is really interesting is the amount of loose seagrass that is floating after this has occurred.
Also who do you ring to report this as the EPA numbers are hopeless

[ThePinkPanther]

Best trick is to get up close to him and pretend you are taking a pic of him!

Even just holding up yer mobile phone is good enuf to often scare them off!

Last year I actually did take a pic of an illegal trawler down around the top end of the Pelican Banks, sent it into Fisheries and there it died. Tried to follow up with a phone call or two but met the usual stone wall!!

Invariably the trawler will be crewed by the Yellow Raincoat brigade who butcher anything that moves irrespective of the legality of where the catch is made!

[gr hilly]

yes you must send your pict the bayside bulletin.
hilly

[Hornblower]

If it was me I would email the pictures with the time and date and the names and addresses of yourself and all other witnesses on your boat together with contact details and a short statement with a description of the people on board along with the exact time and GPS marks etc and the heading of the vessel with any identifiers you notice. Keep it as short as possible but detailed. Do not give opinions, or do not make suppositions, just stick to what you saw, heard, felt, smelt and did and what you observed occurred to the water around the where the vessel was trawling such as the disturbed weed, murky or discoloured water etc.

When you email this off to the EPA, ensure that the you CC in your Local State MP and request a reply that the message has been read and that it will be actioned. Keep a copy of the sent message so that you can forward it on to the papers or Today Tonight etc if it is not actioned etc - but don't let on you are doing it to them.

This WILL get a response from the EPA and probably a follow up call from your local MP's office. It sends the message that you made detailed observations of the vessel and its crew and that you will make a credible witness for prosecution purposes. It also shows them that you are no fool and that you will NOT let the matter lie.

If you witness something like that again, remember you need to corroborate what you saw. This can be done a number of ways as follows:
1) When you take your photos try to get a reference point in them (difficult on the water I know) which can pinpoint exactly where you are - This is the problem with these matters I believe as the EPA will say it is simply too hard to prove that they are in a "no trawl" zone - take a photo of your GPS with the trawler in the background by pointing your boat towards it or take photos of the trawler with prominent landmarks in the background. You can NEVER take enough photos if you have a digital camera.
2) Contact VMR AND the Water Police if you have a radio and mobile phone and get both the calls logged and possibly recorded digitally.
3) Call up other boats on the radio to see if anyone will corroborate what you see.
Depending on the circumstances you may be able to come up with other ideas but whatever you do take plenty of photos from different angles and try to get some that identify clearly the vessel doing the wrong thing.

If you follow these simple procedures you have as good as fired a torpedo into the vessel midships as it also makes it very hard for the EPA to ignore this type of evidence. You have to understand that with the "Failed Labor Defence and Civil Liberty Lawyers" running the judicial system verbal testimony is simply not good enough to secure convictions in criminal matters such as these - in fact you won't even get the matters before a court on uncorroborated verbal testimony alone as no one will prosecute.

I hope this helps, other might have some other ideas as well.

Cheers,

Craig