Greenpeace via AFP - Getty Images

Greenpeace activists on Aug. 30 try to intercept the FV Margiris as it enters Port Lincoln in South Australia.

The world's second-largest fishing trawler, which can process 250 metric tons of fish a day using a 900-foot-long net, will likely be banned by Australia for two years so that experts can study whether it would deplete fish stocks and worsen the accidental bycatch of sea turtles, dolphins and seabirds.

"There has never been a fishing vessel of this capacity in Australia before and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act needs to be updated so that it can deal with it," Environment Minister Tony Burke said before House lawmakers agreed to review the law and the science. Australia's Senate is expected to take up a vote next week.

"When you have a vessel with a large freezer capacity that therefore is able to remain through extended periods of time in the same part of our oceans, there are a different set of environmental considerations," Burke said. "When the law falls short, you change the law."

The nearly 500-foot vessel, named the Abel Tasman, is registered in Australia and can hold up to 6,200 metric tons of fish.

Seafish Tasmania, an Australian company, brought the Abel Tasman to Australian shores last month in a joint-venture with the boat's Dutch owners. The venture had initially been awarded a quota to catch up to 18,000 metric tons of jack mackerel and red bait fish under strict conditions. 

The partners and a commercial fishing group complained Australia was being unfair.

"Changing laws in response to emotive campaigning and 'trial by media' undermines the credibility of Australian fisheries management, creates uncertainty and insecurity for fishermen and deters investment that is needed to support regional jobs," Seafish Tasmania and the Commonwealth Fisheries Association (CFA) said in an open letter to lawmakers on Wednesday.

Olaf Kraak / AFP - Getty Images

Greenpeace activists locked themselves to the anchorline of the Margiris on July 2 while it was still in the Dutch port of IJmuiden.

CFA spokesman Brian Jeffries said a counterargument could be made that large, strictly regulated trawlers are better than many small, less-regulated ones that "have to fish for much longer a period" and thus are "more likely to take, for example, bycatch."

Greenpeace, which had attempted to stop the ship from docking when it arrived in South Australia in late August, hailed the environment ministry's move as a "sensible response to the threat of the Abel Tasman."

The world's largest trawler is the Annelies Ilena, a slightly bigger Dutch ship that's now in the North Sea. 

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Marc De Verteuil / Papa Bois Conservation

Dead leatherback sea turtle hatchlings and smashed eggs are seen on the island of Trinidad after heavy equipment was used to divert a river on July 8.

Thousands of leatherback sea turtle hatchlings and eggs were crushed over the weekend by bulldozers and excavators used to divert a river on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

"Unfortunately the engineers in charge bulldozed a far greater portion of beach than necessary, and they did destroy many viable nests," the Papa Bois Conservation group posted on its Facebook page.

It wasn't immediately clear how much of an impact the tragedy would have on the critically endangered species, but the group noted that it happened on "the world's most densely populated leatherback nesting beach."

Papa Bois said it wasn't opposed to diverting the river, since it had been eroding not only a local eco-tourist hotel but the nesting area itself. But it noted that the work was done without supervision by "any of the local turtle protection groups."

It also didn't blame the equipment operators, but those "higher up" who told the crews where to work -- "not one of whom was on site to make sure the works were done with as little damage as possible," the group added. "There was no coordination, no leadership."

Marc De Verteuil / Papa Bois Conservation

These leatherback sea turtle hatchlings were saved from heavy equipment that shifted a beach on Trinidad, one of two major islands that make up Trinidad and Tobago.

Sherwin Reyz, a member of the Grand Riviere Environmental Awareness Trust, saved some 500 hatchlings but estimated that up to 20,000 eggs were crushed or consumed by vultures and stray dogs that quickly moved in to eat the remains. 

"They had a very good meal. I was near tears," Reyz told the Associated Press. "It was a disgusting mess."

Female sea turtles return to the beaches where they were born to dig sandy nests and incubate eggs. Leatherbacks lay about 100 eggs at a time, but not even 1 percent survive to adulthood. 

Leatherbacks are the largest sea turtle species -- some more than 7 feet long and weighing 2,000 pounds. They can live 100 years. 

They are also one of seven species of sea turtles, all of which are endangered due to reduced habitat, human consumption of eggs and even being caught up in fishing gear.

Marc De Verteuil / Papa Bois Conservation

This sea turtle hatchling did not survive when heavy equipment diverted a river on a Trinidad beach.

The Trinidad hotel owner who had been asking the government to redirect the Grand Riviere River said he was shocked by how it was handled.

"For some reason they dug up the far end of the beach, absolutely encroaching into the good nesting areas," Piero Guerrini, an Italian who owns Mt. Plaisir Estate Hotel, told the Associated Press. "This could have been avoided with a much wiser approach. But it was done too late and it was done in the wrong way." 

Guerrini's hotel was full of tourists who had come to this Caribbean country to see the tiny leatherback hatchlings head for the sea. Instead they saw hatchlings dying in front of their eyes. "This really put a lot of bad images in people's minds," he added. 

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