A week and a half after Wine Harbour Fisheries was ordered to pull its baby eel — or elver — nets out of the water, poachers are at work on the Liscomb River, 170 kilometres from Halifax on the Eastern Shore.
“Our net should be here, not some illegal fisherman,” says Brenda Golden, a co-owner of Wine Harbour Fisheries.
Golden is looking under the Liscomb River bridge where a fine mesh net supported by floats stretches into the black foamy water.
She has no doubts it’s there to catch hugely valuable, tiny, translucent “glass eels” that are shipped live to Asia and grown for food. They can fetch up to $5,000 a kilogram.
Hoping to have the net removed, Golden’s daughter reported it to the local Department of Fisheries and Oceans on Tuesday.
“She contacted DFO here in Sherbrooke. She was told to the best of my knowledge that they are on strike and will not be coming to look after it. This net could be full of eel, dying. Where’s conservation? Where’s DFO doing their job?” Golden said in a riverside interview.
Fisheries officials did not provide a response when asked about this incident. Nor to questions about the impact of the ongoing Public Service Alliance of Canada strike on its ability to rein in widespread illegal harvesting.
Reality check from fishery officers union
Meanwhile, a union official who represents striking fishery officers said they are not patrolling rivers.
Scott Mossman is the local president of the Union of Health and Environment Workers, which is part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
He says while many fishery officers are designated essential to protect the safety of Canadians, they are only enforcing shellfish contaminated areas to ensure people do not get ill.
“Though fishery officers are usually patrolling to enforce conservation measures and laws for fish species, currently that is not a function that is deemed essential for the safety and security of Canadians, therefore, patrols to enforce closures and other laws related to conservation and catches are not being done during this period of the strike,” Mossman said in a statement to CBC News Wednesday night.
“Though there are concerns with violence between persons within fisheries such as the illegal elver fishery, fishery officers are not empowered to enforce public safety other than [what] was linked directly to their authority under the Fisheries Act. That role falls to the police force of jurisdiction such as the RCMP.”
DFO minister says it’s illegal
Wine Harbour is one of nine commercial elver licence holders and two indigenous groups in the Maritimes ordered to cease operations because of what federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray called a “huge escalation” in illegal “poaching.”
Illegal harvesting has been carried out by non-Indigenous and Indigenous groups that aren’t members of First Nations with DFO-approved plans to conduct a moderate livelihood elver fishery.
‘It’s deplorable’
Wine Harbour had landed just 33 kilograms of its 1,000-kilogram quota for elvers when the fishery was closed.
“Last year we paid almost a quarter million dollars to workers. This year they’ve got nothing. We’ve made nothing,” Golden said.
It was one of her employees — Shelley Bowen — who came upon the net during an interview with CBC this week in Liscomb.
“It’s definitely in there for elvers. It’s deplorable,” says Bowen.
She’s one of 20 people thrown out of work when Wine Harbour was closed down. Getting enough weeks to qualify for employment insurance will be difficult this year.
“I’m not too happy, and a lot of other people aren’t neither. I think it’s without justification,” she told CBC News.
“I don’t understand why we can’t still be fishing if the illegals are fishing anyway. They’re only hurting the licence holders.”
Illegal elver fishery continues elsewhere
The DFO-ordered shutdown has not stopped Illegal elver fishing elsewhere in Nova Scotia, either.
Time-stamped images of elver fishing on a half dozen rivers were provided to CBC News and DFO by Atlantic Elver Fishery, another commercial licence holder operating south of Halifax.
They include fishing on the East River near Chester, which is used by fisheries staff to monitor the health of stock.
South Shore-St Margarets Conservative MP Rick Perkins asked Murray about it Monday in the House of Commons in Ottawa.
“No one from DFO has been on that river. And if you can believe it, DFO enforcement called the licence holder this morning proactively to say that they won’t be monitoring the river,” Perkins said.
“We closed down the fishery to protect public safety and conservation,” Murray responded.
“But enforcement continues for the closed elver fishery, so we are working to reduce the amount of illegal fishery and will continue to do just that here,” she said.
Mi’kmaw leaders silent
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.
Fisheries lead Chief Gerald Toney of the Annapolis Valley First Nation declined to comment when approached by CBC News recently.
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. We’koqma’q First Nation in Cape Breton also has a commercial licence.