When Monitoring Breaks
The federal government requires every industrial trawler in BC to carry an independent at-sea observer to monitor bycatch.
Former observers told The Narwhal that they were bullied, isolated, and threatened by crew members onboard trawlers, to the point of fearing for their safety.
“You’re out there alone.”
Jon Eis, a veteran observer, says skipper Kelly Andersen pressured him to underreport dead halibut aboard the trawler Raw Spirit in 2018.
📌 What Happened:
- Eis alleges that Andersen yelled at him and called Archipelago (observer company) to try to get the number reduced
- Eis began locking the door to his cabin every night out of fear
Eis told DFO and Archipelago Marine Research what happened to him. The Narwhal reported that “A government representative told him not to speak to the media, as did the trawl association and fishermen he trusted.”
A Pattern of Intimidation
Key fact: Threats are routine, varied, and can come from any member of the crew.
Observer Matt McKay was assigned to the Viking Enterprise, a large factory trawler. He worked 18-hour days, measuring 500 halibut by hand —a detail-oriented task that attracted resentment from the crew.
📌 What Happened:
- He faced constant bullying
- He felt intimidated as the only observer among over 20 crew members.
A former observer, who wished to be known only as TG, told Strong Coast that “10% of the [crew members] were respectful and realized it’s part of doing business.” However, the other 90% “played games,” purposefully exhausting observers by “doing lots of sets and doing them while you slept.” He also said some crew members “treated [observers] horrible,” refusing to share information and barely talking to observers.
TG said he’d woken up after hearing the trawl gear being set and would later see halibut, which were not the target species, “being filleted and put in totes.”
“If you change your numbers, they give you free fish.”
Key fact: Bribes are also used to undermine bycatch reporting.
Kate Ramsay (pseudonym) lasted just six months as an observer. She says crews offered bribes in the form of money and fish to fudge numbers, and describes a persistent culture of “bullying” onboard her vessel.
“Archipelago just laughed when I called them to talk about my experience,” she told The Narwhal.
“I do know of observers who have gotten too scared to not change their numbers,” she added. “They’re too scared of what the fishermen will do.”
$1 Billion in Unreported Fish
Key fact: Accused skipper quits, but continues to be in the business through ownership of trawlers.
Eis estimates he under-reported 3 million pounds of fish over his career. If all observers faced similar pressure, that would mean 140 million pounds of discarded fish over two decades—more than BC’s total annual legal groundfish harvest.
In May 2020, two weeks after The Narwhal’s story broke, Kelly Andersen resigned as a director of the Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society.
Andersen still owns and operates vessels. When the story came out in 2020, he was in the midst of purchasing a larger factory trawler with a fish-reduction plant. His business partner in the deal, The Canadian Fishing Company—owned by BC billionaire Jim Pattison—has remained silent.
Jim Pattison also owns a significant number of the trawlers recently profiled in a Pacific Wild report, which details the ecological destruction wrought by trawlers on BC’s coast.
“The amount of waste is crazy.”
Not all crew members endorse the indiscriminate methods of trawlers. Strong Coast spoke to a number of former crew members of trawlers, many of whom said they left their boats because of the amount of bycatch they witnessed.
“I have some videos of sea lions in the nets,” said a former crew member of the Raw Spirit, who called it the “worst boat on the coast.”
A former crew member of the Northern Alliance said they used to bring up halibut, giant squid, and endangered sharks as bycatch. He noted that the bycatch was “never alive when it goes back, especially the thousands of rockfish that get [caught]. I was shocked. It’s an ugly business for sure.”
“So much salmon, oarfish, [thresher] sharks, herring, you name it, we were catching it and letting them die and thrown back into the ocean,” said Dave Smith, another former crew member. “This fishing should 1000% be illegal!”
TG, the former observer Strong Coast spoke to, corroborated that sharks were a common bycatch species. He added that he’s seen “a trawl catch 20,000 lbs of Dungeness crab when targeting groundfish.”
“Of the fisheries, trawl was the most challenging just because of [the] mortality of fish retained or bycatch thrown over” he said.
According to him, the deception of the trawlers doesn’t stop at underreporting bycatch.
“I’ve seen altered or inaccurate bridge GPS and had to confirm on my handheld [if we are] indeed in [the] right area or if [we are] near or in a closure.”
Most of the people Strong Coast spoke to did not want to be named, for fear of repercussions.
Broken to the Core?
Key fact: Diverse stakeholders have acknowledged that observer intimidation is a problem.
“There’s a culture that has developed,” says Brian Dickens, a longtime BC fisherman. “It hasn’t developed because these people are evil; it’s human nature. If you can get away with it, that’s what you’re going to do.”
Liz Mitchell, president of the Association for Professional Observers, told The Narwhal that at least six fisheries observers have gone missing under mysterious circumstances worldwide. At a 2013 fisheries conference in Chile, she learned of three additional disappearances.
Even industry insiders acknowledge the scale of the problem.
“I absolutely agree that [underreporting] could be a possibility,” said Shawn Stebbins, vice-president of special projects at Archipelago. “It’s just common sense.”
So far, no observer company in the Pacific has had its licence revoked, and no vessel has been punished.
