Tag Archives: treaty right to fish
As the elver season opens, a First Nation is pushing back hard against DFO
In the coming weeks, Matthew Cope will anchor his cone-shaped fyke net along a river, and as the overnight hours creep by and the ocean tide comes in, he will catch tiny but highly lucrative juvenile eels. He will do so, however, without authorization from the Department of Fisheries, asserting that as a Mi’kmaw harvester, he has a treaty right to fish for the young eels, known as elvers, even outside of federal regulations. He expects to be stopped, and even arrested by fisheries officers, as he was last year during an elver seizure at a transport facility in Dartmouth, N.S. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:40
Elver prosecutions trickle into court after ‘hell’ year on N.S. and N.B. rivers
About three dozen people have been charged with offences related to this year’s chaotic illegal fishery for juvenile eels in the Maritimes, a number that falls well short of the overall tally of arrests this spring but which the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans says could grow. The enforcement of the lucrative fishery for the tiny eels, also known as elvers, has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, with many in the industry outspoken about what they view as a failure to crack down on rampant poaching. The department said Friday that 37 people have been charged with elver-related fisheries offences committed in 2024, providing for the first time a concrete number of prosecutions that have emerged from a year when fisheries officers struggled badly to keep pace. more. >>CLICK TO READ<< 19: 03
