Sea Shepherd Targets Toothfish after Japan Whale Hunt Halted

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd on Wednesday left Australia on a campaign targeting illegal fishing in the wild Southern Ocean, having successfully seen off Japanese whalers after a decade of harassment.

The conservationists said with Japan's annual hunt on hold after an International Court of Justice ruling, it would focus its summer campaign on halting the fishing of rare Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish, vowing to "track down the criminal profiteers".

Their lead ship, Bob Barker, left the Tasmanian port of Hobart with a second ship, Sam Simon, joining it from New Zealand in the next week for the three-month mission.

"Our ships are once again preparing to take their place as the last line of defence to protect the precious marine life of Antarctica," Bob Barker skipper Peter Hammarstedt said before leaving.

"This year, we will track down the criminal profiteers who poach vulnerable toothfish, we will drive them out of their hunting grounds in the shadowlands of the Southern Ocean, and we will deliver them into the hands of justice."

Toothfish live in Antarctic waters at depths of 300 to 2,500 metres (1,000 to 8,200 feet) and are long-lived species, which means they are vulnerable to over-fishing due to their slowness to mature.

Sea Shepherd said increased surveillance and patrolling of waters by authorities in Australia and New Zealand had improved the toothfish situation in some areas.

But illegal fishing, by poachers who often switch flags on their vessels, was continuing in what the group calls the "shadowlands" of the Southern Ocean which are extremely remote and outside national jurisdictions.

Hammarstedt said toothfish were sold as Chilean sea bass -- popular in high-end restaurants -- and their numbers in the wild were rapidly falling.

"It sells primarily in the United States, Europe, Japan," he said. "There's an increasing market in China."

Sam Simon captain Sid Chakravarty said if boats were found, their gear would be confiscated and fish returned to the water.

"Sea Shepherd will also work with the relevant law enforcement agencies internationally to have these vessels arrested and impounded and the vessel owners held responsible for their operations," he said.

After a decade of harassment by Sea Shepherd, Japan was forced to abandon its 2014-15 whale hunt in March when the International Court of Justice said the annual expedition was a commercial activity masquerading as research.

Last month Tokyo announced it had cut its Antarctic whale-catch quota by two-thirds in a move it hopes will convince international opponents it is conducting real science.

It said it intends to resume "research whaling" in 2015-16.