Drug investigation near Digby instead yields nearly $50K worth of juvenile eels

An RCMP raid past week astatine a southwest Nova Scotia location didn't output the drugs that investigators were seemingly seeking, but constabulary did observe astir $50,000 worthy of juvenile eels that fisheries officers determined were being stored illegally.

Police searched a location successful Plympton, astir 20 kilometres southwest of Digby, N.S., past Thursday arsenic portion of a cause trafficking investigation, according to an RCMP spokesperson. Officers arrested 1 man, but helium was released without charges.

Police recovered nary drugs, but did observe the tiny eels, known arsenic elvers, on with immoderate amerciable tobacco. Fisheries officers were called in, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said 30 kilograms of elvers were seized.

The seizure is 1 of a fig authorities person made successful caller weeks. DFO has been routinely posting updates on its enforcement successful the lucrative fishery, though the department faces criticism from immoderate commercialized licence holders who judge officials are not doing enough.

DFO has tried this play to bring the fishery nether power aft respective years of rampant unauthorized harvesting on Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers driven by request from Asia, wherever the elvers are shipped unrecorded and raised successful aquaculture facilities for food.

Hundreds of inspections

The section introduced caller regulations aimed astatine halting the merchantability and export of illegally caught elvers. As of Sunday, DFO reported officers person done 907 riverside inspections, 104 inspections astatine holding facilities and 205 inspections astatine airports. There have been dozens of arrests.

But determination continues to beryllium criticism from a fig of commercialized licence holders that fisheries officers aren't responding to aggregate complaints of unauthorized fishing.

Stanley King, with Atlantic Elver, said the Ingram River west of Halifax is 1 of the waterways assigned to his company. The quota for the stream has been caught, but helium said riverside cameras amusement radical proceed to food for elvers.

He said helium and others person repeatedly called the DFO reporting line. He besides spoke by telephone with Noel d'Entremont, the department's manager of conservation and extortion successful the Maritimes, and voiced his concerns.

Particularly worrisome, King said, is unauthorized sportfishing connected the East River adjacent Chester, N.S. The stream is the tract of a astir three-decade elver monitoring study.

"It undermines the lone technological information that we person that supports the sustainability of our manufacture and, you know, informs america connected the wellness of our stocks," helium said. "It's incredibly important. There's thing other similar it."

Debra Buott-Matheson, a DFO spokesperson, said successful an email that officers person made implicit 70 arrests this elver play for violations of fisheries laws.

But she said determination besides appears to beryllium a "lower level of unrest" than successful erstwhile years erstwhile determination were aggregate reports of threats and violence, and seasons were chopped abbreviated oregon cancelled outright.

King acknowledged determination has been little unit and less assaults this season, but helium said there's inactive been heated arguments on riverbanks betwixt commercialized fishermen and those without DFO authorization.

More than 140 rivers successful Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are assigned for elver fishing, which is done astatine nighttime during the springtime, and DFO said it has brought successful further officers from different regions, though it declined to accidental however many.

The section maintains it does travel up connected reports of amerciable fishing, but said fixed the ample fig of rivers, it can't ever respond close away. During riverside inspections, officers inquire harvesters for their licences and corroborate they are connected the close river, the section said.

"Enforcement enactment is not ever visible, and it whitethorn not look the mode radical expect it to look," Buott-Matheson said successful the email. "This fishery takes spot astatine night, mostly successful the dark. Fishery officers usage some overt and covert means to observe activity."