Photo credit: SeaShepherd.org

Report by Captain Paul Watson, Steve Irwin: Sea Shepherd’s helicopter reconnaissance flight this morning found two fishing vessels. One was engaged in transferring bluefin tuna into one of the two nets being towed by the other vessel. The bluefin fishery vessels were inside waters claimed by Libya and about 42 miles off the coast of North Africa. At 1300 hours, the Steve Irwin came upon the Italian vessel Cesare Rustico towing two cages; one contained about 800 fish (the other was empty).