Sea Save BLOG

Keeping Paradise Safe – Searching for Poachers

As an official Cocos Island volunteer, one of my routine duties is to accompany rangers on patrol.  We are searching for illegal fishing vessels lurking inside the Cocos Island boundary. Most often these patrols occur the middle of the night and on the windward side of the island where the water can be very rough.   After spotting a boat, we first make sure the vessel leaves the park waters.  Since many fishermen have already cast their lines into the water, we must act quickly to remove them from the water.

 

Sometimes the lines are challenging to locate, but as soon as we find them, we haul out as fast as possible to stop the process of animals being hooked, and to hopefully save any animals already on the line.  This process can be heart-wrenching as you drag out the struggling and often dead animals and it is a contradiction that this the process happens against the beautiful background of the gleaming bioluminescence in the ocean that continues until it meets the clean, clear star-filled night sky.

Dolphins surround the boat and we can see the faint glimmer of the island in the distance.  Once the net hauling is completed all is quiet and I am immersed in nature and realized that once, long ago, the entire earth was this beautiful, this pure.

I appreciate the many people who offer their lives to protect this beautiful place, this final bastion of purity, this drop of heaven.  We will continue to protect Cocos Island!

Español: 

Una de las tareas de los voluntarios en la isla ,es acompañar a los guardaparques a las patrullas , donde lo que se intenta es sacar las embarcaciones de pesca ilegal  fuera de la zona de proteccion de la isla ( 12 millas ) en algunos casos nos encontramos con botes dentro de la zona y ya Han lanzado su linea de pesca en las aguas…ahi es donde empieza nuestro trabajo , sacar las lineas del agua lo mas rapido possible , para que los menos animales possibles se vean atrapados , y si es así poder rescatarlos … hay una parte de la patrulla que es lindissima entre tanto dolor   y es que de repente te ves navegando donde la bioluminiscencia une cielo y mar , llenando todo cuanto ves como si una manta de estrellas nos rodeara, despertando con delfines jugueteando alrededor del bote , visualizando la isla desde fuera , y asi… vigilando sus aguas para que siga siendo asi de linda por mucho mas tiempo y para que no nos olvidemos de que un dia , todo el mundo fué así… Grandes guardaparques y personas que ofrecen parte de su vida a esta dedicación, doy gracias por coincidir con ellos en mi camino. Seguimos conservando la isla del coco.