Global Courant 2023-05-10 14:00:00
Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray admitted on Tuesday that the plagued eel fishery, known as the eel, “got out of control” this spring.
“We were enforcing the eel fishery. It just got out of hand, partly because of the ease of fishing and the value of the catch,” Murray said outside parliament in Ottawa.
Murray closed the fishery in mid-April after an unprecedented number of unauthorized harvesters navigated the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers.
They came for the small, translucent eels caught in nets as they migrated from the ocean to freshwater.
Elvers sell for thousands of dollars a kilo and are shipped alive to Asia where they are raised for food.
The influx of poachers posed a conservation risk to the species and a safety risk to fishermen’s officials, harvesters and the public. There have been nighttime harassments, threats and violence on rivers.
DFO has been accused by commercial glass eel license holders and politicians of not doing enough to stop illegal fishing – before and after the decision by the fisheries management to close the commercial fishery on April 15.
Murray claims $1 million worth of product was seized
Murray stressed that efforts to combat illegal fishing are paying off.
“We’ve made many, many, like dozens of arrests in the last few weeks since it closed. We’ve even seized over $1 million of product,” Murray said.
Atlantic Elver Fishery, a commercial elver licensee, has set up cameras to record nighttime poaching in Nova Scotia. (Submitted by Atlantic Elver Fishery)
“I definitely don’t think it’s helpful for an MP to suggest there’s no enforcement because we’re working with provincial law enforcement. We’re working with the RCMP.”
Earlier this week, DFO announced it had seized 113 kilograms of glass eels worth $500,000 after an inspection near Halifax on Friday.
But a commercial licensee, Stanley King of Atlantic Elver Fishery, says the illegal harvest goes on overnight and has the photos to prove it.
He has installed trailing cameras on rivers assigned to the company. He regularly forwards images to Murray requesting enforcement. On Monday, he delivered images of poaching on three rivers.
“This is the 22nd time I have reported poaching of elver from these locations in the 23 days since the fishery was closed,” King wrote.
