Bob Barker and the Thunder
Bob Barker and the Thunder
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A few years ago, Goldfish crackers pulled an almost completely unnoticed little goof to boost their sales: they jokingly rebranded themselves "Chilean Sea Bass". It was a clever, if not somewhat obscure reference if you got it, which I doubt many people did. Of course a lot of us are familiar with and enjoy a good Chilean sea bass. But the fish itself is not the reference, it's the rebrand. Goldfish is mocking what was an actually incredibly successful rebrand of the Patagonian toothfish.
The Patagonian toothfish is a deep-sea butterface with a high oil content and an intensely mild flavour that people tend to enjoy. But it wasn't so popular 50+ years ago. Especially in North America, the name, look, and overall vibes rubbed just about everybody the wrong way. I understand this completely; deep-sea dwellers are creeps, and 'toothfish' makes me imagine the whole thing filled with teeth sticking out in every direction. But, with the right razzle dazzle, it could become a star. In the late 70's, a fishmonger by the name of Lee Lantz decided that a little makeover via literally just changing the name of the thing would be enough to make the Patagonian toothfish palatable to North American markets. He was exceptionally correct about this. By the mid-90's, the United States FDA formally approved the already-socially-accepted name change, and the Chilean sea bass rose to great popularity along with pogs.
Pogs didn't survive the cruel tides of time, but unfortunately the demand for the Patagonian toothfish did. Once the high school art girl in overalls and glasses, the Patagonian toothfish was now considered a ✨fancy fish✨ in high demand. Which meant there was a lot of money to be made selling it, and a fish like this doesn't exactly grow on trees. Like many fish that live in very cold deep waters, the Patagonian toothfish is slow to grow. It takes nearly a decade for it to reach sexual maturity, out of a total lifespan of 50 years. Females - the larger of the sexes - reach about 2 metres (6.5 ft) in length and around 200 kg (440 lbs) in weight. It is not easy to make more Patagonian toothfish. The demand for them fueled a frenzy of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing that depleted the once-steady Patagonian toothfish population and damaged the ecosystem that relies on them. It also led to the longest and most deranged maritime chase in history. For 110 days and 16000 kilometres (10000 miles), a ship called the Bob Barker relentlessly pursued a notorious outlaw trawler vessel: the FV Thunder.
At the time in 2014, six ships known as "the Bandit 6" were wanted by interpol for illegally poaching the Patagonian toothfish for decades. They wouldn’t report the millions of dollars worth of toothfish they caught, making it impossible for the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources to set quotas for sustainable catch. The Patagonian toothfish population wasn’t the only victim of the Bandit 6. They used massive nets (up to 25 kilometres/15 miles long) that trapped marine life indiscriminately. Of all the animals caught by these things, only around a quarter of them were the toothfish. All of the remaining corpses, including sea birds and marine mammals, were discarded. The most notorious and the worst offender of the Bandit 6 was the Thunder. Over the course of >10 years in operation, The Thunder brought in nearly $80 million (USD) for its mysterious owners. And it caught the eye of Sea Shepherd, a nonprofit marine conservationist organisation that takes direct action to protect the seas. This includes pursuing illegal fishing vessels where governments will not. And it decided to take on the Thunder.
gonna get you
Sea Shepherd sent one of its ships, the Bob Barker (named after The Price is Right host and animal rights activist who donated $5 million to further their work), on a mission they dubbed Operation Icefish. They sat out in the absolutely hellish arctic waters, waiting for the Thunder. And the moment they saw it, the Bob Barker began its pursuit. The Barker radioed the Thunder, telling them “Good afternoon, Thunder. This is Bob Barker. You are fishing illegally within a CCAMLR region.” The Thunder predictably denied any illegal activity, even as it became clear that the Bob Barker was wildly familiar with them. The Thunder fled.
The goal was not to destroy the Thunder, but to simply chase it to a port where the authorities could deal with them. I'm sure the crew of the Bob Barker knew what a challenge it would be to take on the worst of the Bandit 6, but I'm not sure they anticipated the timeline involved or the history about to be made. Over the course of the chase, the Bob Barker sailed through ice sheets and storms. They nearly had a head-on collision with the Thunder as it attempted to bully them away. Despite all of this, the Bob Barker didn't give up. They had one extremely crucial advantage: more fuel than the Thunder.
On day 110 of the chase, the Bob Barker received a baffling distress call from the Thunder. They reported that they had crashed into a cargo vessel and were taking on water. Given their earlier intimidation tactics, I might've thought something like this was a trap, but I've never captained a boat. And maybe the crew of the Bob Barker did suspect it was a trap, but things became very serious when they noticed that crew members were descending from the shift into life rafts. The call was definitely real. The Thunder was sinking.
RIP you son of a bitch.
📸 Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd Global
In the hours that followed, the crew slowly evacuated The Thunder and waited for the captain to finally join them. The Thunder captain was definitely not benevolently prioritising his crew's safety; more likely, he was trying to wait out for a smaller boat to come help him escape. But no boat came, and he was forced to join his crew in getting rescued by the Bob Barker. While all of them waited on deck, the Thunder captain whined about having to wait with his crew. He felt that he deserved private, better conditions, away from the people under him. As the Thunder sank, the Bob Barker captain and a photographer made the dangerous decision to board the Thunder and gather evidence before it sank away.
The cargo crash story was suspicious at best. From the overall state of the Thunder, it certainly didn't look as though it had crashed into anything. It looked more like an intentional self-sinking. What likely happened was this: the Thunder was running out of fuel. They knew they wouldn't be able to out-last the Bob Barker, so they decided to discard as much evidence against they as they could, and sank the ship to destroy the rest of it. The photographer and captain were nontheless able to retrieve enough while they searched the ship, and throughout the chase they had been taking meticulous logs of the vessel's activity. Like an honest guy acting normal about something he didn't do on purpose, the captain of the Thunder cheered his boat sinking. Regardless, there was enough evidence for consequences.
After all the fines, the Thunder was finally put out ot vusiness. The architects of the operation - the captain, chief engineer, and second mechanic were charged $17 million for their crimes. Maybe you've heard this story before; despite their guilt, these powerful men were mysteriously released from prison very soon after conviction. But the problem of overfishing, once largely invisible to the public, did start to get more attention. Although the beneficiaries behind the Thunder didn't face the full consequences of their crimes as they should have, they did get in trouble. And this sends a warning to future would-be poachers: you are not invisible, you are not anonymous. You are being watched; keep it up, and you can be caught.
If you're interested in reading more about this from somebody who was actually there, I highly recommend reporter Ian Urbina's book The Outlaw Ocean.
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