Sea Shepherd crew say poaching ship may have been scuttled to conceal crimes

A notorious poaching vessel pursued by the Sea Shepherd environmental group has mysteriously sunk off the West African coast in an incident the green group suspects was a deliberate bid to conceal evidence.

Crew of the Thunder, a stateless ship which was allegedly operated by the Spanish fishing group Vidal Armadores, were rescued by the Sea Shepherd vessels, the Bob Barker and the Sam Simon. They had been shadowing the Thunder for 110 days since reporting that the crew of the Thunder had been using illegal gillnets to land vulnerable toothfish on the Banzare Bank in Antarctica on December 17.

The vessel's captain attempted a variety of manoeuvres to shake the environmental group, including coming close to ramming the Bob Barker, Sea Shepherd said, and insisting he had sufficient fuel and supplies to remain at sea another nine months.

On Monday afternoon, however, the ship issued a distress signal after entering the Exclusive Economic Zone of Sao Tome. The captain of the Thunder then radioed the Bob Barker to report that his vessel was sinking.

"They took to their life rafts and we very quickly had our zodiacs in the water to make sure all 40 of the crew were safe," Adam Burling said from Sea Shepherd's headquarters in Australia.

"To be honest, we were a bit worried about the safety of our own crew. They have tried to ram us in the past, they threw grappling hooks at our zodiacs and lengths of metal at the ship, but we did a risk assessment and we decided that we had to take the chance to make sure that all the crew were safe."

The crew of the Thunder was taken aboard the two Sea Shepherd vessels without incident and were fed and provided with water. While the Thunder was sinking, three people from the Bob Barker boarded the vessel to document the situation aboard.