MADRID, Spain (June 29, 2006) – Last week, a team of Oceana investigators made a 2,000-km trip by car along the coastal roads of Southern Italy and Sicily. Over five days they made detailed reconnaissance visits to all of the port regions in Campania and Calabria on the Italian peninsula, and to the northern and western coastline of Sicily. Indeed, even some of the smallest ports in this area of the country have been revealed as havens for dozens of illegal driftnet vessels of all sizes.
The Oceana team was made up of a marine biologist, who is an expert in fishing gear identification, a video cameraman and a photographer, all members of the Oceana Ranger crew. Their boat remained moored in the port of Agropoli, as there was a full moon which means that the driftnet vessels stop fishing and return en masse to their home port. In order to make the most exhaustive inventory possible of those boats that were using driftnets to catch swordfish, the Oceana crew supplemented the patrols that its investigation catamaran has been carrying out at sea over the last few weeks with inspections carried out directly in the ports.
Read the Oceana investigative report in full