The Canadian federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, together with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, have announced a crackdown on lobster poachers in the Bay of Fundy – in large part by persuading the public not to buy poached lobsters being sold door to door.
The campaign, a combination of strict enforcement and publicity utilizing a video, is covering all of the Bay of Fundy but will concentrate of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, according to Richard Beek, DFO conservation protection supervisor for Charlotte County. The county borders downeast Maine.
“Poaching, of course, has been going on for years,” Beek says. “But it’s getting worse every year. So with the R.C.M.P. we decided to add a Crimestoppers publicity campaign, telling people, for one thing, that buying poached lobsters from a door-to-door seller is illegal and also asking people to report information to the R.C.M.P. on the Crimestoppers telephone.”
He adds, “Maybe fishermen won’t fish illegally if there’s no market for their catch.”
Beek says there’s a growing concern about future lobster stocks in the Bay of Fundy. The lobster fishery meant roughly $350 million last year in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Beek also says that declining stocks could hurt the industry’s future value, as well as the earnings of fishermen and plant workers. He says poaching is having a significant impact on the fishery and adds, “This is a limited resource.”