Poaching BUSTS!

[surferman]

1300 poaching violations, scumbags!

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/1...iolations.html

• Tuesday, 03.12.13

Two face 1,300 fishing violations
BY KEVIN WADLOW

Boat owner Evelio Lazar Egusquiza Fornes (above) of Miami and mate Jorge Nesto Gellart face more than 1,000 counts of violating fishery law. KeysNet.com
Photo BY KEVIN WADLOW
KeysNet.com
Two commercial fishermen have been charged with a total of more than 1,300 conservation violations after being found inside a no-take zone in the Dry Tortugas, marine law-enforcement officers report.
Both men were cited last week for harvesting 664 yellowtail snapper — one misdemeanor count for each fish — seized from the commercial boat Candelaria, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Boat owner Evelio Lazar Egusquiza Fornes, 49, of Miami and mate Jorge Nesto Gellart, 49, also were charged with fishing inside the Tortugas Ecological Reserve, a no-fishing zone enacted under the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and other violations.
"The two occupants were actively harvesting yellowtail snapper by hook and line, and were very surprised to see us," FWC Lt. Josh Peters wrote in a report.
Signals from the boat's vessel monitoring system, a radio beacon required aboard commercial boats in some federal waters, showed the boat was stopped inside the no-take area, Peters reported. Officers patrolling the Dry Tortugas responded and located the Candelaria in the northern reserve.
"A chum bag, lines and baited hooks were in the water," Peters said. "An inspection of the vessel's catch revealed some of the yellowtail were still alive and fighting for life."
The Tortugas reserves were established to protect the area's marine ecosystem from effects of harvesting marine life, including fish. Commercial boats can navigate through the zones but cannot stop if they have fish aboard.
The 781 pounds of confiscated yellowtail was sold for $2,558, which will be held in escrow until the case is decided.
"We see occasional cases from the Tortugas but this is one of the bigger ones," said FWC Officer Bobby Dube, an agency spokesman
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/1...#storylink=cpy

[seamonkey]

They just nabbed these 3 a-holes from Maine in Absecon. I hope they throw the book at them!


Three men from Maine have been arrested and charged with poaching more than 24,000 baby eels out of Absecon Creek, the Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement.
Conservation officers from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife saw two of the men at about 2:45 a.m. Friday, tending to an illegally set net that was set to catch juvenile glass eels, also known locally as elvers. The glass eels are the juvenile form of the American Eel, which live up to 20 years in freshwater lakes and streams before migrating to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.

Robert Royce, 65, of Hope, Maine, and Neal V. Kenney, III, 53, of Thomaston, Maine, were arrested while possessing more than three pounds of the juvenile eels, which translates to about 8,000 individual eels, the DEP said. Officers then found a truck with a tank holding another six pounds, or 16,000 eels. Conservation officers then arrested the driver, Dale Witham, 54, of Medomak, Maine.

All three were charged with criminal trespass while conducting illegal activity on property owned by the Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority, use of a fyke net without a license, use of an illegal fyke net, possession of about 24,250 eels measuring less than 6 inches in length, and possession of eels exceeding a daily possession limit.

All three were arrested and processed with the help of the Absecon Police Department and lodged in the Atlantic County Justice Facility on $2,500 bail. Royce has since posted bail and been released. Arraignment is scheduled for Monday. Officers seized all equipment and vehicles associated with the incident.
Juvenile American Eels are raised for food popular in Asian cuisine. One pound can fetch up to $2,500 on the open market, the DEP said. The men were using a fyke net, which is a cone-shaped net mounted on rings and fixed to the bottom by stakes.
The average length of the juvenile eels in New Jersey this time of year is less than 3 inches. State law sets a minimum catch length of 6 inches and a catch limit of 50 eels per day.
American eels, which are found in freshwater, bay and ocean habitats from Greenland to South America, have been eliminated from much of the species’ historical freshwater habitat in the past 100 years, mostly because of dams that block the animal from migrating up rivers. Power plant turbines, degrading habitat and overfishing also are causes for why the species’ number has declined. Only Maine and South Carolina have glass eel seasons, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Anyone who sees what they think is illegal fishing should call 877-WARN-DEP.
Contact Sarah Watson:
609-272-7216

[Monty]

They just nabbed these 3 a-holes from Maine in Absecon. I hope they throw the book at them!

I agree.

[bababooey]

Robert Royce, 65, of Hope, Maine, and Neal V. Kenney, III, 53, of Thomaston, Maine, were arrested while possessing more than three pounds of the juvenile eels, which translates to about 8,000 individual eels, the DEP said. Officers then found a truck with a tank holding another six pounds, or 16,000 eels. Conservation officers then arrested the driver, Dale Witham, 54, of Medomak, Maine.

. One pound can fetch up to $2,500 on the open market, the DEP said.

9 lbs of eels @ $2500/lb = $22,500 when they brought them back to Maine. Not bad, splitting 3 ways brings them almost 8 grand apiece. Is it any wonder these characters do this? There has to be a way to stem the demand at the source. Anyone have any ideas?

[captnemo]

I read where they can make 10 to 20k a day in Maine. The problem is limited permits which makes it so lucrative. imo they should shut it down everywhere

[storminsteve]

Holy shamoleons no wonder people poach them! captnemo I agree they should shut it down otherwise this will continue. The lure of the almighty dollar is too great.

[bababooey]

I read where they can make 10 to 20k a day in Maine. The problem is limited permits which makes it so lucrative. imo they should shut it down everywhere

What the Capt said. There is no reason to have a market for those elvers. Let the asians get them from asia. Oops, I forgot there are no real quantities of eels in asia because they ate them all.

[finchaser]

Conservation officers with the NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife have arrested and charged three men from Maine with illegally harvesting more than 24,000 juvenile eels from an Atlantic County creek. Two of the men were observed by conservation officers around 2:45 a.m. on March 13 tending an illegally set net in the Absecon Creek in Absecon and the three were arrested in the early morning hours.Anyone observing what they suspect is illegal fishing activities should contact the DEP hotline at 877-WARNDEP (877-927-6337).For more information on the apprehension of the violators, as well as on the life cycle and importance of eels to the ecosystem, see the DEP news release at http://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2013/13_0023.htm . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -This message has been sent to you as a subscriber to the njmarinefishingautomated mailing list by the NJ DEP Division of Fish and Wildlife.To unsubscribe from this list, please go to:http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/lstunsub.htmIf you need assistance please email njfishandwildlife@dep.state.nj.us.

[nitestrikes]

Thought this was a good read. Enforcement in Jamaica bay seems pretty lax.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/ny...pagewanted=all
Poachers Are Elusive Catch in City Waters

Brian Harkin for The New York Times
Male horseshoe crabs gather around an egg-laying female off Rulers Bar Hassock, a section of Broad Channel in Jamaica Bay. They are considered an easy and lucrative catch in May and June.

By J. DAVID GOODMAN and SARAH MASLIN NIR

Published: July 3, 2013



It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie: Lookouts. Scuba gear. Secret caches, hidden under floating docks. Horseshoe crabs.




Enlarge This Image

Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

Officers Gregg Hein, left, and Gregory Neary of the United States Park Police prepared for an early morning patrol of Jamaica Bay, Queens, where they will search for potential poachers and other violators.


Enlarge This Image

Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

‘These guys always run. Because they know they’re faster than the cops, ’ said Lt. David Buckley, United States Park Police.

Enlarge This Image

Brian Harkin for The New York Times

Don Riepe of the American Littoral Society, a conservation group, holds a horseshoe crab off the shore of Little Egg Marsh.


Horseshoe crabs?
The crabs are among the incredible riches of Jamaica Bay, New York City’s wildest expanse of water, where a running battle between conservation authorities and those who would flout their rules has been going on for years. Despite the bay’s distant fringe of skyline, it is teeming with schools of striped bass, blackfish and fluke. Crabs and clams are numerous in its reedy shallows.
For these species, and others, state and federal authorities set strict limits on how many of each an individual may catch per day — it is sometimes as little as two or three — and of what size.
And there are plenty of fishermen who try to get around those regulations and profit from an illicit catch.

“It’s a whole underground world,” said a fisherman standing outside Stella Maris Bait and Tackle in Sheepshead Bay one day recently. He declined to give his name for fear of retribution from his peers. “You go to any market, and there’s people selling fish, anytime, that’s illegal.”
“Ever see those mob movies?” he added, as whelk, also called scungilli, were unloaded nearby. “People come out of the woodwork that you’ve never seen, envelopes full of stuff, this, that, money.”

And on a recent night, a full-fledged police helicopter chase over the waters of the bay, using night-vision goggles. A New York Police Department helicopter patrol, out on a routine run from its base at Floyd Bennett Field on Memorial Day discovered four men near the shore, tossing live creatures into two flat-bottom skiffs. One boat escaped. The other, which was pursued by the helicopter, did not. Two men now have a date in federal court on charges of poaching horseshoe crabs.

“This is a game that these guys pick up over the years,” said Capt. Francisco Lopez, who heads enforcement in Jamaica Bay for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. “Cat and mouse stuff.”
But so far this year in Jamaica Bay, the mice have been many while the cats have been fewer and further between.
Sharp cuts from the federal sequestration meant furloughs this spring for the United States Park Police officers who patrol the bay, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Those officers are routinely called away to guard the Statue of Liberty.
State authorities have faced their own problems; Hurricane Sandy destroyed a dock used by the officers from the Department of Environmental Conservation, forcing them to keep boats many miles outside the bay.


“We’re not catching 50 percent of the people,” Captain Lopez estimated. “We just don’t have the manpower.”
Those who fish do so for different reasons: There are the owners of sport fishing boats, many with middle-class backgrounds, who offer chartered fishing. They are largely catch-and-release fishermen, and support fishing limits, which places them in the cross hairs of their more commercial counterparts.
Those are the men who catch fish to earn a living, by selling them door-to-door to restaurants, or through brokers, who meet them at the marinas with wads of cash, and pile coolers full of fish into the backs of their cars. Many are descendants of generations of Jamaica Baymen, but there are newer arrivals as well: Chinese fishermen from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and from Flushing, Queens.

Quotas can vary, depending on whether a fisherman holds a recreational or commercial license, and on the time of year. The bay is governed by overlapping federal and state regulations that fishermen, as well as some law enforcement officials, say create confusion on the waters — so much so that accused poachers have successfully used competing regulations to get a case dismissed.
A particularly easy and lucrative catch in May and early June are the horseshoe crabs. Some Asian chefs use the arthropod’s eggs, in a scramble. The pharmaceutical industry bleeds and releases them, harvesting a component in their blood. And commercial fishermen say there is no better bait for catching eels and whelk.

Moratoriums on horseshoe crab fishing in New Jersey have driven up their price, from about one dollar per crab five years ago to about five today. The very rules meant to protect the crabs, some fishermen say, have made them a more desirable catch.
The dearth of policing on the water means poaching is a regular practice, both day and night, said Frank Crescitelli, who runs a charter sport fishing boat and says he often floats past noncommercial boats where the captain is “knee deep in fish.”
To avoid being caught when pulled over by police or Department of Environmental Conservation boats, poachers commonly put their catch in a weighted burlap bag draped over the ship’s gunwale, or side, Mr. Crescitelli and others said. When apprehended, they release the bag, which sinks along with any evidence.

“You look behind them,” Mr. Crescitelli said, “and you see the dead fish floating in their wake as they are speeding away from the D.E.C. police.”
On the docks, the tensions among the competing groups of fishermen can take a dark turn.
After he reported a man he suspected of poaching to state enforcement officers, John McMurray said that his charter boat, One More Cast, was vandalized and untied from its moorings in Somerville Basin on the Rockaway Peninsula; it ended up on the rocks.
Shortly after, Mr. McMurray, a conservationist who sits on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s striped bass advisory panel, said he arrived to find One More Cast at the bottom of the marina. Though he does not have proof, Mr. McMurray suspects that what befell his boat was retribution. “It certainly made me think twice about ratting out a guy at my marina again.”

On a recent Thursday morning, Officer Gregory Neary of the United States Park Police sat behind the controls of a 34-foot, jet-powered boat, the only law enforcement vessel patrolling the flat expanse from John F. Kennedy Airport to the churning, brackish waters around the Breezy Point jetty.

Even when patrols do come across poachers, Officer Neary said, they can be difficult to catch. This is especially true of the clammers who congregate along areas like Plumb Beach, by the Belt Parkway, plucking their quarry from the shallow waters and dropping them into buckets weighted to sit out of sight just below the surface. (Clams from the bay are considered unsafe for human consumption.) “You’re not beaching a boat for a clammer,” he said. “We hope they don’t run.”

With so few officers available, spotting poachers often falls to concerned citizens.
In May of last year, a tipster recorded video of two men scooping up horseshoe crabs under the Belt Parkway, and later phoned the park police; a patrol boat raced to the area.

But as the boat approached, the men roared off, illustrating another impediment to thwarting any poaching: the poachers have swifter boats. “These guys always run. Because they know they’re faster than the cops,” said Lt. David Buckley, who commands a small unit of the park police.
When the officers finally caught up with the fleeing boat, at the Tamaqua Bar and Marina in Gerritsen Beach, they found a Carolina Skiff filled with 900 horseshoe crabs. But the poachers themselves had vanished. The police arrested the boat’s owner, William Dunphy, who was charged with unauthorized commercial fishing and illegally taking horseshoe crabs. (In season, commercial fishermen are subject to shifting quotas, which can reach as high as 200 horseshoe crabs per trip per day, or go as low as 30; out of season, the limit is 5 per trip per day.)
Rather than fight it out in federal criminal court, where these violations end up, Mr. Dunphy paid a $125 ticket and made a $3,000 donation to the National Park Service, Lieutenant Buckley said.
Not everyone has done the same.

In 2007, a commercial fisherman from Sheepshead Bay, Richard Knauer, challenged two tickets that charged him with illegally taking horseshoe crabs from federal waters. The trial included deep discussion of the overlapping state and federal regulations as well as expert testimony on the definition of a fish.
While such cases rarely go to trial, those that do are hard fought. That is because the lawyers for both sides tend to come from law school clinics, where students are eager to practice their arguments.

“These cases are given much more attention than they would ordinarily get,” said Patricia E. Notopoulos, an assistant United States attorney who oversees students from Brooklyn Law School who argue for the government. Students from New York University School of Law represent defendants like Mr. Knauer.
Mr. Knauer was acquitted of illegal fishing — because arthropods are not fish, the court ruled — but found guilty of harming wildlife. He appealed and, nearly three years after taking more than 70 horseshoe crabs from the bay, was able to defeat the other charge on a legal technicality.
Now Mr. Knauer’s brother has been caught up in the net of the law: Joseph Knauer, 33, was spotted by the Police Department helicopter unit on Memorial Day along with Robert Wolter, 28.

To the officers, such family ties are not surprising. “It’s the same guys every year,” said Sgt. Grant Arthur of the park police, who has worked in Jamaica Bay since 1988. “They’ve been doing it for generations.”

Rules intended to bolster fish populations, several fishermen said, have decimated their livelihoods, and threaten to end that maritime lifestyle. “It’s frustrating, that you can’t do something you love and make a living doing it,” said John Arena, who was arrested with 46 striped bass in 2009, and said he paid a fine of $1,200.

Jamaica Bay fishermen, he said, “are an endangered species.”
That argument has little weight with conservationists. “The horseshoe crab can’t do anything else, the fisherman can,” said Don Riepe, the president of the Northeast Chapter of the American Littoral Society, a conservation group that is active in the bay. “A fisherman can fish for something else,” he said, “or drive a cab.”

Mei-Yu Liu contributed reporting.

[strikezone31]

Charles Wertz Commercial Scumbag!!!!!!!

Glad they put this scum out of business. What an a-hole!


LIer to pay up to $516G, close shop in plea deal over fishing scam

Originally published: August 17, 2013 4:34 PM
Updated: August 17, 2013 9:27 PM
By MARK HARRINGTON mark.harrington@newsday.com



Photo credit: Patrick E. McCarthy | Federal prosecutors charged a Long Island fisherman, Charles Wertz, of East Meadow, with wire fraud and falsification of federal records in connection with a scheme they say resulted in the illegal harvesting of more than 86,000 pounds of fluke over three years. (March 10, 2010)

A commercial fisherman from East Meadow admitted to falsifying records to overfish, and agreed to pay up to $516,000 in fines, give up his fishing license and sell his boat in a plea deal reached with federal prosecutors in Central Islip on Friday.


According to court papers and prosecutors, Charles Wertz Jr., 53, operator of the Freeport-based commercial trawler the Norseman, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and two counts of falsification of federal records in a scheme to underreport 86,080 pounds of fluke harvested between 2009 and 2011, authorities said.

The fish were valued at just under $200,000, authorities said. Wertz had previouisly pleaded not guilty to the charges, but a plea agreement had been in the works, authorities said in court last month.
Wertz's fish-dealing company, C&C Ocean Fisheries, also pleaded guilty to wire fraud and three counts of falsification of records, and will close as part of the agreement, prosecutors said.

---

Ronald Russo, an attorney for Wertz, declined to comment. Wertz is scheduled to be sentenced in November.
Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said based on federal guidelines, the government agreed not to ask that Wertz face more than 21 months in prison, "and the defendant can argue for a term of prison that includes no time."
Wertz and another unnamed individual intentionally submitted 137 falsified dealer reports from May 2009 through December 2011, and 70 falsified fishing logs "as part of a scheme to defraud the United States of overharvested and underreported fluke," authorities said.

During that period, authorities said, Wertz participated in the federal research set-aside program, which allows fishermen to buy the right to harvest allotments of fish beyond the federal quotas. Money from a set-aside auction is used for fisheries research.
As part of the plea deal, Wertz and C&C Ocean agreed to pay between $480,000 and $516,000 in combined fines and forfeitures, relinquish federal fishing permits and divest interest in the Norseman, a longtime presence on the Nautical Mile in Freeport. Wertz also agreed to a ban from participation in the set-aside program, authorities said.

"When individuals like the defendant willfully defraud the government in order to turn a larger profit for themselves, they are also cheating their fellow fishermen who choose to play by the rules," Robert G. Dreher, an acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement. "Today's plea demonstrates that we will hold those who break the rules accountable and make sure that this valuable resource remains available to everyone."


http://www.newsday.com/long-island/n...scam-1.5910166

[storminsteve]

About time a commercial poacher gets something more than a slap on the wrist! This guy is a turd bucket. 86,000 lbs of fluke is a lot! Thats 43 tons.

[nitestrikes]

"When individuals like the defendant willfully defraud the government in order to turn a larger profit for themselves, they are also cheating their fellow fishermen who choose to play by the rules," Robert G. Dreher, an acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement. "Today's plea demonstrates that we will hold those who break the rules accountable and make sure that this valuable resource remains available to everyone."


http://www.newsday.com/long-island/n...scam-1.5910166

That says it all right there. When a guy like this poaches in such great numbers he is stealing from a shared resource.

[voyager35]

^^ What gets me is how he was able to get away with it for so long. I think there are a lot of public officials that may have an incentive to look away. I am not talking bribery because if there was proof it would be in the papers. You have to wonder how such a big operation could have been unmolested for so long. People talk and some must have known. Unbelievable. Glad he got his just desserts.

[hookset]

You have to wonder how such a big operation could have been unmolested for so long. People talk and some must have known.

Hey voyager just look at Salty Tours. That guy has been getting away with raping the ocean and poaching for years. Have you ever read about him in the papers? No. He must have a network of contacts protecting him. Can't wait for the day he gets busted. I will drink a whole bottle of Johnnie Walker to celebrate that arrest.

[clamchucker]

This was posted on the internet earlier. They got some poachers at Island Beach. Some fishermen I know heard about it as well. Good job to the park police.

have to give the "Tip of the Cap " to the NJ parks police today, their hard work and professionalism really showed . A group of guys coming off the jetty had SHORT Striped bass in their car and in the backpacks. Hope NJ Parks keep up the good work. Great job guys .. Thank You

[plugcrazy]

Repeat offenders nabbed in MD - God these were 18" fish and they filled the cooler with them!


Maryland Natural Resources Police (NRP) charged four men on Saturday with overfishing and with catching 131 undersized striped bass in Dorchester County.
An officer stopped a pick-up truck pulling a boat at about 4:15 a.m. after it crossed the center line on Route 335 on Hooper Island. During an inspection of the coolers in the boat, the officer found 138 striped bass, all but seven of them below the 18-inch minimum size.
All four men were charged with possession of more than 10 striped bass over the limit and possession of more than 10 striped bass under 18 inches: Jose Adelso Hernandez Orellana, 43, of Manassas, Va., Jose Luis Reyes, 40, of New Carrollton, Ruben Lopez Valle, 45, of Germantown, and Rene Obdulio Pacheco Rivera, 31, of Oxon Hill.
The citations require a court appearance. A trial date has been set for February 19 in Dorchester District Court.
In addition, Orellana, the truck driver, was issued a motor vehicle warning.
Rivera was found guilty last year in Dorchester District Court of possessing undersized striped bass. Orellana was found guilty in Charles County District Court of crabbing violations in 2009, court records show.
NRP urges citizens who see conservation violations, maritime emergencies and other law enforcement issues to call its communication hotline at 800-628-9944.

[surfstix1963]

Natural Resources Police say officers caught the pair while double checking their catch. They intended to sell the stolen fish at market price.
?This is shocking because these are professionals. They know all the rules,? Offer said.
And because they didn?t play by the rules, police say the pair face fines in excess of $400,000. That?s a maximum fine of $2,500 per fish for exceeding their daily harvest by 532 pounds.
?The people that are going out there working honestly, it gives them a black eye,? said Robert Brown, president of the Watermen?s Association.
Three years ago, 13 million pounds of fish were found in poachers? nets. State officials shut down the rockfish season early to protect the species from overfishing.
?It killed us. It killed our winter?s work,? a waterman said at the time.
And the Watermen?s Association says they?re not in the clear yet.
?The following year, we were deducted 10 percent of our catch in case somebody did break the law,? Brown said. ?The next year it was down to five percent so it?s down to 2.5 percent this year.?
It?s a hefty consequence for honest workers when those who cheat don?t fish by the rules.
DNR is cracking down on poaching using sonar to detect nets underwater.

[Monty]

I hope they shut them down early again. Talk about the honest ones. Malarkey, this has got to stop, protect the bass from them now, and then protect the bass from the recreational fishermen. People cannot be trusted.

[finchaser]

they will still fish. bass is on every menu down there

[ledhead36]

I hope they shut them down early again. Talk about the honest ones. Malarkey, this has got to stop, protect the bass from them now, and then protect the bass from the recreational fishermen. People cannot be trusted.

they will still fish bass is on every menu down there

This is completely unacceptable. If you get caught poaching more than once they should take your boat and gear away. End of story