Project Magnet – Stakeouts and microchipped lobster: Inside DFO’s probe of a First Nations fishery
Under the cover of darkness one night last October, a pair of federal fisheries officers in a boat slipped across Nova Scotia’s St. Marys Bay and began to haul up 28 lobster traps belonging to members of the Sipekne’katik First Nation. They carefully planted identifying microchips on some of the lobster inside and then dropped the traps back into the sea. The covert work, in some of the most lucrative lobster grounds in Canada, took about four hours and lasted until 2:42 a.m. The aim was simple — to confirm allegations roiling wharves in southwest Nova Scotia that lobster being caught under Indigenous food, social and ceremonial licences was being illegally sold as part of an off-season black market. >click to read<08:46
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