This fishing vessel, fishing for krill to make fish meal just killed a humpback whale!
Trawler from Pesca Chile reported for accidental capture and death of humpback whale
A criminal complaint against Pesca Chile was filed last Friday before the Court of Guarantee of Punta Arenas, after a trawler of this company based in this city, accidentally captured and caused the death of a humpback whale.
The incident occurred last March 25 aboard the vessel Antarctic Endeavour during krill fishing in the vicinity of the South Orkney Islands, a small archipelago located northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, some 1,800 km southeast of Punta Arenas.
The complaint was filed by María Tapia Almonacid, national director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Service, against the owner of the vessel, against the master of the ship Stanley Dennett Morales and against all those responsible as perpetrators, accomplices and accessories to the crime contemplated in article 135 bis of Law 18.892, the General Law on Fisheries and Aquaculture, perpetrated against the public interest.
The alert was activated from the Antarctic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose fact was detected and denounced by people who were on board the ship Antarctic Endeavour, attaching a series of photographs that show the capture of a cetacean specimen by means of a fishing net, producing its death as a result of the maneuver, and its body was returned to the sea.
Fishing operation
According to the complaint, the crime was committed last March 25 during the tacking of haul No. 8 of the second trip of the 2025 season, carried out by the trawler Antarctic Endeavour. "Around 5.45 p.m., when the vessel was making the set maneuver to catch krill, from the starboard side, one of the crew members on deck noticed the presence of a whale, which was interacting with the net, so they tried to observe it in the water, but it was not sighted. Later, when the set net was finally on board, the crew noticed a strange shape in the bag, protruding lumps. In this regard, as could be seen from the background information sent to this Service (Sernapesca), they proceeded as a normal set, the sack was opened and the corresponding sample was obtained. When the bag was lifted to proceed with the emptying maneuver, the head of a humpback whale could be seen. The specimen was approximately 10 meters long (estimated by the boatswain) and the sex could not be determined since the ventral area was not observed. The ventral folds were full of krill and the tip of the jaw was bloody. As the head was headfirst into the codend the release was relatively quick, at about 18.10 hours the sack was lifted and the body was sliding down the ramp to finally float away."
Penalty
According to the provisions of Article 135 bis of Law 18.892, "whoever kills or hunts or captures a specimen of any cetacean species shall be punished with the penalty of prision mayor in its minimum degree and confiscation, without prejudice to the corresponding administrative sanctions in accordance with the law. Likewise, whoever has, possesses, transports, disembarks, elaborates or carries out any transformation process, as well as commercializes or stores these live or dead species or part of them will be sanctioned with the penalty of confiscation and minor imprisonment in its medium degree, without prejudice to the corresponding administrative sanctions in accordance with the law".
According to the literal wording of Article 135 bis, and according to the facts reported, in the opinion of Sernapesca “it is clear that the criminal conduct of capturing and killing a specimen of cetacean, in this case a humpback whale, was committed by the accused, being authors of the crime stipulated in Article 135 bis of the General Law of Fisheries and Aquaculture”.
In this specific case, the national director of Sernapesca, made use of her role as a public official, that when she knows and reports crimes, she must report these facts to the Public Prosecutor's Office, to initiate the corresponding investigation, in order to clarify the facts and in case of proving the commission of a crime to prosecute the corresponding criminal responsibilities against all those who are responsible.
Considering the environmental nature of the denounced crime, the Prosecutor's Office is requested to dispatch a broad order to investigate through the Environmental Crimes Investigation Brigade (Bidema) belonging to the PDI.
On Monday, April 14, Judge Ricardo Herrera ordered to send the background information to the Public Prosecutor's Office for its knowledge and pertinent purposes.
226 whales died in the last
52 years in the Chilean coasts
An investigation revealed that in the last 52 years (1972-2023) 226 whales died in the Chilean coasts. Of these, 62% corresponded to cases in which the cause of death could not be determined. In the cases with an identifiable cause, almost a third, 28% were attributed to collisions with vessels, followed by 7% to entanglement and 3% to natural predation.
Considering historical data since 1972, a study by the Ideal Center states that Chile ranks sixth in collision mortality. However, if the analysis is reduced to the last 12 years, since 2013, when necropsies began to be performed more systematically, Chile has become the leader in collision mortality with an average of five deaths of large cetaceans annually.