Other articles by Lila Burgos:

Hard reality: Overfishing may explain decline in crab harvest

Other articles by Erica Koltenuk:

Cruise-line tourism leaves tons of garbage in its wake

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PUNTA NORTE, ARGENTINA — High tide is receding from the scalloped beach of Punta Norte on Argentina's Patagonian coast. Suddenly a shiny, 22-foot-long black and white beast hurtles onto the shore and snatches a baby sea lion from the surf's edge. As the orca wriggles back into the water, it tosses the cub into the air, catches it and disappears with its afternoon snack. A few hundred feet back, 50 tourists from four continents cheer and embrace, overwhelmed at their luck to witness this rather bloody marvel of nature.

Punta Norte, at the tip of Peninsula Valdes — 650 miles south of Buenos Aires — is revered by marine biologists as one of the world's most extraordinary wildlife refugees. A Unesco World Heritage site, it represents a great success by the Argentine government in protecting marine life. Every year, thousands of penguins, sea lions, elephant seals and whales flock to Peninsula Valdes to feed and mate.

All around the Peninsula, beaches resound with raucous breeding. Just offshore, the waters froth with life as nutrient-rich, cold Antarctic currents and warm tropical currents from the north collide to create a marine paradise. Yet, just beyond the horizon, a floating mass of steel and nets threatens to undermine this refuge, and much of Argentina's marine ecosystem.

Two hundred miles away, just outside Argentine waters, hovers a fleet of international fishing vessels whose lights at night resemble a vast city. They come for abundant hake (also known as whiting), squid, shrimp and shellfish. Exploiting fisheries that Argentina has long neglected, giant refrigerated ships from Spain, Russia, South Korea and Japan harvest, process, and freeze thousands of tons of fish.

Closer to shore, the problem of foreign ships becomes more serious. Biologists and government officials agree that illegal, unregulated, and unreported pirate fishing in official Argentine waters is devastating fishing stocks all along Argentina's 5,000-mile coastline. The marine birds and mammals of Peninsula Valdes depend upon these same stocks.

"What is happening here is pure carnage," says fisheries expert Ernesto Godelman, head of Argentina's Center for Sustainable Fishing. "We can't know for sure but the numbers are close to 100,000 tons per year of illegal catch." That would equal about 11 percent of the reported annual legal catch.

The repercussions have been widespread.

From Mar del Plata just below Buenos Aires, the center of the Argentine fishing industry, to the southern tip of South America, Argentina exercises little control over its marine resources. Last year's harvest of 900,000 tons was 15.8 percent below the previous year.

"Every year there is less," says Patricio Bogan, manager of the sole fishing fleet and processing plant in the world's southernmost town, Ushuaia. From his office overlooking the Beagle Channel at the tip of Tierra del Fuego, surrounded by glacier-capped fjords emerging from the fog, Bogan recalls the former bounty of the seas. Just 15 years ago, all his son needed to catch a bucketful of anchovies was a toy net. Today, Patricio's fleet struggles to operate at full capacity and has been forced ever farther out to sea in search of more.

Yet few Argentines share Bogan's concern. In a country with some of the world's most fertile soils and rich pampas grasslands perfect for grazing, beef is king. Consuming the most beef per capita in the world, Argentines have comparatively little appetite for fish.

Carlos Verea has been in the fish business for 15 years. In his Buenos Aires shop, he prepares for his busiest week of the year: Easter, the only time when this largely Catholic country tends to abstain from beef.

Stirring a large paella, its aromatic vapors filling the store, he laments the lure of the traditional national diet. "If you ask 10 people in the streets, maybe one will say they eat fish. It's just not part of the culture," he complains. Adding to his troubles, the federal government lowers the price of fish for Easter week — a program intended to sell fish not suitable for export.

"It's a huge lie. The scraps they can't sell to other countries end up for sale in my store. I don't have a choice."

Most commercial fish exports are destined for Europe and the United States.

In the 1970s, foreign fleets arrived to tap Argentina's underexploited resources. Distracted by a series of political debacles, including a disastrous war with England over the Falkland Islands, Argentina granted free rein to anyone wanting to fish.

As the military dictatorship gave way to democracy in the 1990s, Argentina began to develop its own fishing industry. Today, Argentina exports more than 80 percent of its catch, which, according to the federal fisheries ministry, earned more than a billion dollars last year, a figure actually surpassing profits from beef exports.

However, much more is taken by monstrous ships that aren't Argentine. Vessels the length of two football fields with on-board refrigeration can process up to 50,000 tons of fish and stay at sea for months.

Yet attempts to exclude foreign giants have largely failed. Argentina's few inspectors are widely rumored to be easily bribed. With weak penalties for companies caught overfishing their quota, there is little incentive for accurate reporting.

"The government should be revoking captains' licenses but what can we say?" says Guillermo Caille, head of the fisheries division of the Natural Patagonia Foundation, a conservation society. "Argentina's government is infamous for corruption. Why would it be any different in regards to how they manage fishing?"

The quantity and location of fish caught, he explains, are reported by the vessels themselves. Once declared to the government, all information stays internal. Government GPS data that track the exact location of vessels is released neither to the public nor to scientists.

On protected Peninsula Valdes, sun-bronzed José Ascorti hauls mussels and oysters from the sparkling, cerulean bay. In 1993, after a local collapse of shellfish, he says, "Two hundred of us formed Argentina's only small-scale fishing association." They approached scientists studying the wildlife refuge's marine fauna. What, they asked, were the natural limits of the area? How could they make a profit without fishing themselves out of a job?

An alliance was born, and each Holy Week, an annual fishing festival that attracts thousands celebrates their joint efforts to establish sustainable harvests.

"This area is such an important zone for all of us, regional fisheries minister Juan Carlos Berón told the gathering this year. "There has been an evolution of claiming responsibility for our resources, and everyone here is part of this system."

But Martín Olmo, a retired sea captain, turns away, sighing. "All but two commercial species of fish are collapsing." Efforts to control their tiny bay, he adds, are doomed when stacked against massive industrial offshore overexploitation.

"The only solution," he says, "is to stop fishing altogether for two years minimum. If we don't stop, there will be nothing left."

Lila Burgos was born in Panama City, Panama and raised in Tucson. She is an international studies senior graduating this year.

Erica Koltenuk, from Salt Lake City, will graduate this year with a double major in international studies and studio art. She plans to move to South America.