Amid Talks, Canada Retreats in Fish War

Canada on Friday backed away from its policy of seizing Spanish trawlers in a disputed fishing zone off Newfoundland, while it tries to reach a negotiated agreement with the European Union.

With talks under way in Vancouver, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Brian Tobin said Canada will leave undisturbed for the time being the 10 Spanish boats fishing for turbot in an area known as the “nose” of the Grand Banks. The region is in international waters, but Canada claims the right to enforce fishing conservation standards there on species, including turbot, that migrate into Canadian waters.

Earlier this month, Canadian coast guard and Fisheries Department vessels triggered an intercontinental outcry when, with a burst of machine-gun fire, they seized the Spanish trawler Estai in the area and escorted it into the harbor at St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The ship and its crew were released after a week when the boat owner posted a $355,000 bond, but Canadian authorities collected what they said was evidence that the Estai was violating conservation rules by catching undersized turbot.

Tobin also accused the Estai of catching American plaice, a dwindling fish stock off limits to fishermen in the North Atlantic.

The 15-nation European Union, which includes Spain, protested vigorously that Canada had broken international law. Canada, which has already banned or curtailed fishing of turbot and many other fish species in its territorial waters, said it was acting to preserve those fish that are left.

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A Fisheries Department spokesman in St. John’s said that an undisclosed number of Canadian “enforcement vessels,” including coast guard ships, are monitoring the Spanish. A Canadian navy frigate, the Halifax, also is in the area, although it is not part of the enforcement team.

The Spanish fishing boats are accompanied by a lightly armed Spanish patrol boat dispatched after the Estai was boarded.

The conservation organization Greenpeace also has chartered a ship and announced that it intends to harass the Spanish fishermen.

Tobin told Parliament on Friday that Canada will not hold back indefinitely from moving against the Spanish boats.

“We have to have some indication very soon that these discussions (in Vancouver) are going somewhere concrete, or Canada has to do what it set out to do several weeks ago--ensure the conservation of the stock,” he said.

The talks are aimed at redistributing the turbot quota allocated to Canada and the EU and increasing conservation enforcement in international waters.

Also Friday, the coast guard ship Sir Wilfred Grenfell was testing the latest weapon in Canada’s arsenal against the Spanish--a device that would enable the Grenfell to cut the cable connecting a trawler to its fishing nets. Tobin hinted Thursday that Canada might use the mechanism to halt Spanish fishing rather than seize and board any boats.