Photo: Pescare/FIS

Pescare Denounces: «Uncontrolled Shrimp» Exposes Serious Lack of Fishing Enforcement

ARGENTINA
Thursday, December 11, 2025, 00:20 (GMT + 9)

The lack of effective surveillance turns regulations into "fiction," with vessels operating outside schedule and with tracking systems deactivated.

The news outlet Pescare has raised its voice with a powerful report titled "Uncontrolled Shrimp" (Langostino sin control), exposing an alarming reality in the lucrative fishing industry, according to the analysis published last Tuesday.

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The article, which began with the pointed phrase: "What is preached in the discourse, is erased at the dock. Shrimp lacking control", describes how administrative rhetoric "crashes" against concrete facts at sea. It points to the presence of vessels sailing at "speeds compatible with fishing operations outside the permitted hours (07:00–19:00)" and others with the Automatic Identification System (AIS) "inactive for more than 11 hours".

"Under these conditions, the regulatory architecture —however extensive— operates as a merely declarative device because without effective surveillance, the rule becomes fiction."

The central premise is clear: the sustainability of the resource depends on the "unrestricted respect for the Federal Fisheries Law" and management measures. No certification or marketing speech can replace this guiding principle, because "the norm, without compliance, does not regulate, it simulates."

Questioning Operational Control and Authority

The report focuses on enforcement and control, pillars of the system. Despite the administration relying on tools like monpesat, AIS, and the intervention of the Argentine Naval Prefecture (Prefectura Naval Argentina), the institutional question inevitably arises: "who controls fishing operations in the province?"

Photo: Illustrative

The circumstantial evidence observed (violated schedules and deactivated signals, even at 03:18 hours on Monday, December 8, 2025) suggests that the control system "does not accompany, does not deter, and therefore, does not govern." The fishing time restriction (07:00–19:00) seems to operate more as a "recommendation than as an obligation."

The text also stresses that federalism has granted margins of action that, de facto, function as a "license for a fleet with a structural advantage" that has "multiplied in units" and capture capacity, impacting the transzonal shrimp biomass. The resource does not recognize administrative borders: "what is overfished in one area is paid for, inevitably, in the whole."

Photo: courtesy Revista Puerto

Irregularities in Landings and Business Contradictions

Other excesses pointed out are the "obscene" images of seafood stacked on deck from side to side, contrary to the criterion that prohibits fishing maneuvers while there is seafood on deck.

Additionally, verified information, "double-checked," is reported regarding landings with boxes weighing around 22 kg or even 25 kg, far exceeding the regulatory 17 kg (18.06 kg with the 6% tolerance). If this practice systematically consolidates, the damage is not only biological but also "distorts the labor order and erodes the fiscal framework."

Photo: courtesy Revista Puerto

A significant asymmetry highlighted is that captures in provincial waters do not contribute the Unique Extraction Fee (DUE) to the Nation, but the province of Chubut does participate in the distribution of FONAPE. With more than 106,000 tons indicated for the 2024–2025 season, the impact of this situation is relevant.

The outlet concludes that the lack of control is an institutional problem: "without real enforcement, the management regime is meaningless." The article exposes a great contradiction among business groups who, represented in chambers, push for no fishing outside the ZVPJM due to oversupply, while in their provincial water operations, they tolerate or participate in the "operational lack of control" of a national resource.

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