Fishermen’s Association President Fined For Illegal Tuna Catchff
12 January 2012
Canada Source: The Chronicle Herald
The president of the St. Margarets Bay Tuna Fishermen’s Association was fined $25,000 Wednesday for failing to immediately tag five tuna that he caught.
Robert Cecil Conrad also had to forfeit $27,483, the money Fisheries and Oceans Canada made when it sold the fish.
Conrad pleaded guilty in Bridgewater provincial court Wednesday to three charges under federal fisheries regulations.
He told Judge Jim Burrill that he caught the tuna inadvertently.
“It was my choice not to defend myself,†Conrad said as he told the judge there was another untold part of the story that led him to make poor decisions that he “greatly regrets.â€
Conrad pleaded guilty to breaching conditions of his license at a mackerel trap in August 2011 and failing to immediately tag bluefin tuna that he caught on two consecutive days beginning Aug. 30, 2011.
On the first day, he said he didn’t know he had an untagged tuna until the fisheries officer checked his catch at the dock. He also said the officer didn’t warn him about possible charges.
The next day, Conrad said he knew he had four tuna in his nets. Knowing they would die and not wanting to waste them, he returned to port even though he knew the fisheries officer was there and that they were not tagged.
Federal Crown attorney Andrea Jamieson said the incidents happened at Fox Point, Lunenburg County. She told Burrill that Conrad has a license to fish the lucrative wild bluefin tuna and store them in an offshore trap net before bringing them to the wharf.
She said a fisheries inspector boarded Conrad’s vessel, the Yellow Rose II, on Aug. 30, and found one of four fish taken from that offshore trap net had not been tagged before it was brought to the dock. The department seized the tuna and sold it for $4,833.
The inspector went back the next day and boarded Conrad’s boat again, this time finding four untagged tuna. They were sold for $22,650.
Jamieson said the bluefin tuna fishing industry is “extremely regimented.â€
As a fisherman with 30 years experience and president of the local tuna fishermen’s association, Conrad knew these things, she said.
Burrill agreed, saying Canada has strong obligations to the industry — nationally and internationally — to monitor and protect the migratory fish stocks.
He gave Conrad a year to pay the fine and told him to keep tags on his boat all the time in case he inadvertently catches tuna again.
