Poaching continues uninterrupted on some Nova Scotia rivers despite a federal shutdown of the eel fishery earlier this month, new video and still photographs show.
Images of active fishing for the tiny eels, also known as elvers, were provided to CBC News and the federal government by a frustrated commercial elver licence holder. Some images were taken as recently as Sunday night.
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray issued an order closing the chaotic and occasionally violent elver fishery on April 15 because of what she called a “huge escalation” in illegal fishing by poachers.
They included Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
But the order is being ignored, says Stanley King of Atlantic Elver Fishery.
“This is the sixth report of poaching I’ve made since the minister shut the fishery down one week ago today,” King said in an April 22 email to Timothy Kerr, director of conservation and protection for the Maritime region with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).
“The [order] only punished the licensed fishers as it’s clear from years past, and holds true today, that poachers continue to fish regardless…. DFO [conservation and protection] refuses to enforce despite claims the [order] gives them more enforcing resources. In all my years fishing I have never seen so little enforcement in a season.”
The order effectively ended the season for nine commercial licence holders and two Indigenous groups operating under their treaty right to a “moderate livelihood” elver fishery.
“I understand that shutting down the fishery is difficult for legitimate fish harvesters,” Murray told CBC News after the shutdown.
“It was simply too dangerous to let this continue…. I was not prepared to take the risk of harm to human life, which was certainly a possibility, and nor am I willing to take a risk of the undermining of this stock, which is a very important one, and that was also a risk with poaching.”
Elvers are caught each spring as they migrate from the ocean into nearly 200 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers. They sell for up to $5,000 a kilogram and are flown live to Asia where they are grown for food.
King is part of a delegation of Maritime commercial elver licence holders in Ottawa this week meeting with politicians — including Nova Scotia cabinet minister Sean Fraser — to voice their concerns about the troubled fishery. They are scheduled to meet with Murray on Wednesday.
Illegal fishing activity
King has provided post-closure images of poachers at stationary nets, in boats and dipping from the East River, Hubbards River, Ingramport River, Mushamush River and Sackville River.
DFO grants each licence holder exclusive access to several rivers.
Illegal fishing activity has happened on many other rivers.
The East River near Chester, N.S., is of particular concern as it is home to the longest-running scientific study on elvers in North America. DFO uses it as an “index river ” to measure the health of stock.
“All licence holders and DFO science agree that if enforcement can only happen on one river, it should be the East River to protect the study. We implore you to take a more proactive approach” in enforcement on the East River, King wrote.
“We’ve repeatedly asked for this river to be protected, starting before the season even began, but know of only one instance of [fisheries officials] visiting the river this year.”
DFO did not provide a response when asked by CBC News for the impact of the Public Service Alliance strike by federal government workers on its ability to stop illegal elver fishing.
‘Lawlessness on our rivers’
Nova Scotia Conservative MP Rick Perkins says it has worsened “lawlessness on our rivers.”
“Now, of the few DFO arrests of the thousands of poachers on the rivers this year, all have been released by DFO without processing because DFO enforcement is on strike, leaving no enforcement of any fishery in Canada,” Perkins declared Friday.
Conservation and protection director Tim Kerr told CBC News last week DFO has beefed up enforcement since the shutdown and patrols and arrests continue.
Some fishery officers have been designated as essential workers.
“Individuals who may be out and about would see fishery officers continue to be present at the detachments and continue to fulfil those obligations to support public health and safety,” Kerr said.
The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs has been silent on DFO’s decision to close the elver fishery, and on the role of Indigenous harvesters in the illegal fishery.
Four Nova Scotia First Nations had “interim understandings” with DFO for a department-approved moderate livelihood elver fishery in 2023. They shared a 450-kilogram limit ,which was taken from the allocation of the eight non-Indigenous commercial licence holders. Waycobah Band in Cape Breton also has a commercial licence.
‘We are allowed to fish anywhere we want’
Some members of First Nations outside those deals claim they don’t need DFO permission to fish elvers.
“As Mi’kmaw people, all of this is our territory. It’s unceded Mi’kmaw land and we are allowed to fish anywhere we want,” one Sipekne’katik band member told fishery officers who blocked them from the Sissiboo River in Digby County earlier this month.
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