Tag Archives: fisheries violations
Tuna ruined his life, then saved it
Nobody knows more about the ups and downs of the fish industry than Dennis Gore. Riding high, he was one of the most successful tuna buyers in the world. At the bottom, he was bankrupt, depressed and loathed by commercial fishing captains he couldn’t afford to pay. At one point, his Rainbow Connections company was “doing $9 million in sales a year, mostly selling bluefin to Japan.” On the other end, he was sitting in his living room, “smoking pot and listening to the Grateful Dead.”For years Gore refused to talk about it. “I’ve kept all this inside of me for so long, and it’s been eating at me,” he said while sitting on a picnic table at O’Neal’s Sea Harvest in this sleepy little fishing and boat-building village. >click to read<16:30
Four Arrested in Bourne on Fisheries Violations – Vessel, Trailer, Vehicle Impounded and Gear Seized
On Sunday at approximately 2:19 PM, an Environmental Police Officer was conducting recreational marine fisheries inspections on vessels returning to Taylor Point Marina in Bourne. Upon approaching a vessel that had just hauled out, the Officer observed one of the four males on the vessel run up a hill towards the rail road tracks with a white bucket. The male then dumped a quantity of fish behind some bushes. The Officer approached the male with the bucket and observed six small Black Sea Bass on the ground. The Officer placed the male party in handcuffs and recovered the fish. He escorted the male party back to the vessel and the three other occupants. The Officer asked all four individuals if there were any more Black Sea Bass in the vessel. They all responded no. click here to read the story 11:46
Virginia Marine Resources Commission hits fisherman with new maximum punishment
Last year, state lawmakers answered a plea from Virginia’s commercial fishing industry to toughen the penalties for watermen who repeatedly break the law. On Tuesday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission brought down that bigger hammer for the first time – yanking the licenses of a Hampton fisherman for five years and slapping him with a $10,000 civil penalty. It took the commission’s law enforcement staff 50 pages to document David A. Turner’s history of fisheries violations – nearly two dozen in state courts since 2001, including 10 this year. Among the latest were convictions for harvesting oysters from creeks that had been condemned because of pollution. An undercover sting by Virginia Marine Police led to those charges. “I haven’t seen anything this bad,” Marine Resources Commission chief John Bull told fellow commissioners after listening to a police officer’s rundown. It was a “laundry list … of some of the most serious oyster violations that I can imagine.” Read the story here 21:35
