Lobster fisherman fined $30,000 for fishing 64 illegal traps

By Tina Comeau

SOU'WESTER

NovaNewsNow.com

A Meteghan River, N.S. lobster fisherman has learned the cost of doing business doesn’t come cheap.

After pleading guilty to illegally fishing 64 untagged traps during the commercial lobster fishery last spring, Ronald Joseph LeBlanc, 48, has been fined $30,000.

The court also forfeited $1,740 worth of seized lobster and the 64 traps.

As well, LeBlanc is banned from fishing in lobster fishing area 34 during the last two weeks of the 2009 season.

“Because untagged traps have the potential to bring you a lot of money if you fished them over a year’s period of time, the fine has to be more than the cost of doing business,” Crown attorney Rick Murphy said.

The court took into consideration a year’s earnings from 375 legal traps and divided the amount, determining that over the course of a season one trap can account for up to $600 worth of catch.

“So the fine has to be big enough to deter people from doing that,” said Murphy.

All of the lobsters caught in the traps were legal size.

LeBlanc’s illegal fishing activity came to light as a result of tips from the public. DFO says there was surveillance involved, as well as other investigative techniques that the department is keeping to itself.

“The operation ran over the course of three months and at its peak it involved six fishery officers and three coast Guard personnel,” said fishery officer Noel d’Entremont of the Meteghan DFO detachment. “We used the Coast Guard vessel Geliget to locate the 64 untagged lobster traps.”

Asked how they were able to prove that LeBlanc was the one fishing the lobsters from his vessel Night and Day, d’Entremont said, “That’s another technique we’ll keep to ourselves.”

The violation date was April 22, 2007. LeBlanc was sentenced in court on June 3. Other members of his crew had also been charged but those charges were dropped after LeBlanc pleaded guilty.

D’Entremont said the major concern is conservation of the resource.

“This is one of the last viable fisheries around and the resource has strict guidelines on how much fishermen are expected to take each year, so this really throws the management of it into a spin,” he said. “He was allowed to have 375 traps at the time, this would be 64 he wasn’t allowed to have.”

As for the tips the detachment received from the public, d’Entremont says DFO could not do all of its enforcement work without the public and other fishermen.

“The community is really starting to get involved,” he said. “This is their industry and they understand that they have to play a part in it too. It’s really appreciated on our end because they know a lot more than what they think we know.”