Captain Flounder

A crack squad of hardened investigators from the New Glabe Gazette’s renowned Environment Department (celebrated for successfully toppling the ill-gotten Toma-Toad empire) have succeeded in infiltrating and unravelling a conspiracy by the villainous vermin in the illegal fishing and whaling industries to empty our oceans of their beloved marine life for pure personal profit. For decades soulless criminals have scoured Seldona’s seas in unregistered crafts, penetrating protected waters with titanic trawler nets which indiscriminately imprison fish, mollusc, and cetacean alike, wreaking apocalyptic damage on the fragile ecosystems of the seafloor. Under the shallow facades of reputable companies, these marine menaces have long conducted their bloody business in secret, egregiously exceeding fishing quotas and running rampant over regulations in order to gratify their gluttonous greed. As a result, marine life in the oceans around Seldona and the wider world has fallen drastically in numbers in an ecological crime of catastrophic proportions, as all the while self-satisfied executives sit smugly on mounds of money. A dire situation, and only worsening…

But no longer! For the bold reporters of the New Glabe Gazette, dauntless defenders of the oceans we hold so dear, were on the case once again. Laughing in the face of great personal danger, a small team of the Gazette’s sharpest minds have been hunting these marine criminals with as much relentless vigour as they hunt our beautiful whales, pioneering a new strategy labelled “by land and by sea” by one Jonah Cantor-Lark. This ingenious tactic involved those on the team with a head for figures and a nose for dirty money doggedly pursuing the criminals’ finances through various shady shell companies and other illegitimate fronts – the ‘land’ route – whilst others with stronger sea legs took to the waves to chase down unregistered trawlers and gain first-hand evidence of their sadistic schemes – the ‘sea’ route. This innovative investigative technique, risky and dangerous as it was, turned out to be highly effective, catching our enemies by surprise and imprisoning them in an inescapable pincer of justice. Armed with impressive qualities of robust evidence the Gazette’s journalistic heroes have compiled the following revelatory and damning insight into the unjustifiable evils of the illegal fishing and whaling industries, attached to this article below. With the names of companies, executives and major shareholders involved in this heartless and terrible trade, and backed with folders worth of foul financial wrongdoings, this investigation surely provides everything necessary to ensure the merciless murderers of our much-loved marine life are punished to the full extent of the law.

As the humble leader of this team, I would like to conclude my introduction to the following report with a series of thanks to all those dear friends and members of my crew without whom this awe-inspiring achievement would undoubtedly continue to elude me as it has done for the past twenty years: my close allies Elodie and Genevieve, whose unflagging labour has proved essential to cracking this case; my much-appreciated crewmate Heidi without whose unflagging assistance I would alas be utterly inadequate; my fantastic first-mate Jonah whose ideas and ingenuity have spurred this investigation to its success; my great friends T. T. Thomson and Constantyne whose excellent agency has provided what support it can; and of course our fearsome figurehead Flora Meadows without whose wise and benevolent oversight none of us would have got anything done to begin with. But that is enough from me. Read on to see the truth unravelled, and let the facts speak for themselves.

May our oceans soon be free,
Captain Bartholomew Flounder


Written by Ralph W.