A flurry of news stories in late July 2020 reported on the “discovery” of a “massive” fleet of Chinese fishing vessels in the waters off the Galapagos, which fluctuated to over 350 before the fleet finally left by mid-October to fish farther south. Yet the presence of the Chinese distant water fishing fleet in the area has been expanding for several years. Concerns over the fleet’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing have also grown, spurred by the August 2017 arrest of the FU YUAN YU LENG 999, a Chinese-flagged refrigerated vessel found in the Galapagos with roughly 3,000 tons of rare, near extinct or endangered species onboard, including 600 sharks.
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