...I was surprised to see that our crew was using miniature longlines with 20-30 hooks on each of the many they deployed. Very soon we had filled all of our aeriated live-bait wells with mackerel. Naively, I asked, "Isn't this illegal?"
"Of course," came the reply. "Didn't you see the mackerel fishermen throwing jagged ice at us? A piece of jagged ice is better than a knife because it melts inside the victim, leaving no finger prints."
"Oh . . . of course," I replied meekly. But I was thinking: "Certainly the Fisheries Agency and the Coast Guard must get frequent complaints from the mackerel fishermen. I wonder why they don't do something about it?....
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..the Fisheries Agencycontinues to blame minke whales -- which one senior official has described as the "cockroaches of the sea." But aren't human "cockroaches" a much more serious threat ....