Chinese vessel caught with shark fins in Kiribati crackdown

Kiribati maritime police detained a Chinese vessel after inspectors found banned shark fins on board during a Pacific illegal-fishing crackdown, a police commander said.

Commander Tom Redfern told AFP the vessel was licensed to operate in Kiribati's waters but breached its licence conditions by keeping and retaining shark fins. He said it was escorted back to Christmas Island, a Kiribati atoll south of Hawaii, for further investigation.

The Chinese ship was among four vessels detained or taken to port between August 3 and 14 during a surveillance operation by 11 Pacific island nations. The operation involved aerial surveillance by an Australian military aircraft and help from the US Coast Guard in some areas. Kiribati operated its own patrol boat.

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency earlier said the crackdown covered more than 100 vessel boardings across 28 million square kilometres of ocean. The vessels were detained by authorities in Kiribati, Palau and Papua New Guinea.

Shark finning is banned across much of the Pacific. The practice involves cutting fins from sharks and discarding the carcasses at sea. Andrew Chin, a fisheries researcher at Australia's James Cook University, said finning had led to large declines in shark numbers and was now subject to strict controls.

Demian Chapman, who has researched DNA from shark fins sold in Hong Kong markets, said there was evidence of illegal trade from both the western and eastern Pacific and that there had been other cases of Chinese vessels violating the finning ban.

Kiribati has an exclusive economic zone of 3.5 million square kilometres. It switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019 and hosts Chinese police, a move the United States has said risks fuelling regional tensions.