A true fish story: Md. wildlife police work to stop poachers from stealing bass by th

[seamonkey]

A true fish story: Md. wildlife police work to stop poachers from stealing bass by the ton


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022104944.html

I found this to be pretty interesting. It seems their work is never done.



Gallery

Netting Maryland poachers
The Maryland state fish is cherished by restaurants and stores, as well as criminals looking for easy money.










By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 21, 2011; 10:36 PM

As three-foot-high waves rocked his police boat, Cpl. Roy Rafter helped pull an illegal 1,500-yard fishing net from the icy Chesapeake Bay for two hours with his bare hands.

This Story

• Netting Maryland poachers
• Fighting for the fish, police pursue Chesapeake poachers
• Md. police seize 3 tons of illegally caught rockfish
• U.S. DISTRICT COURT: 2 Get Probation for Buying Illegal Rockfish
• CHESAPEAKE BAY: Nine People Charged With Illegally Catching and Selling Rockfish

View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story


His muscles aching, Rafter painstakingly released each dead and dying rockfish from the strangling net with a sharp box cutter. He felt them flopping softly at his feet. Sweat that ran down his neck turned to frost in the bitter cold.
Hauling in the net was "like filling a potato sack with bricks, tying a string to it, and pulling it toward you," he said.
It was another grueling February day for Rafter and his partner, Sgt. Bob Ford, Maryland Natural Resources Police officers who help patrol the deep waters of the eastern bay near the Bloody Point Lighthouse in the commercial gill net season for rockfish.
The tip that brought them to the poacher's net came at the end of a 3 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift this week. Rafter had one foot on the boat and the other on the dock at the Matapeake complex on Kent Island when his cellphone rang. According to the caller, the net was anchored with a lead weight in a spot the officers had searched just 30 minutes earlier.
The net held 300 pounds of rockfish, a paltry amount compared with the 6,000 pounds of fish Rafter and Ford pulled out of the bay Feb. 1. So far this month, police have found about 26,000 pounds of rockfish - nearly 13 tons - in illegal nets. Under Maryland law, nets cannot be anchored; they must move with the tide.
A staggering catch found in illegal nets in the first four days of February forced the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to shut down commercial rockfish fishing, possibly for the whole month, taking money out the pockets of struggling watermen.
"When you have one of your best friends call you and tell you, 'I can't make a living because of these nets,' you know you have a job to do," said Rafter, son of a waterman and a former waterman himself. "This is all they know."


The plump, tasty rockfish is Maryland's state fish, a precious resource cherished by restaurants and stores of every ethnic persuasion - and by criminals looking for easy money.

Two years ago, police charged nine members of a trafficking ring that, over four years, handled 600,000 pounds of rockfish with a retail value of $3 million to $7 million. Rockfish, also called striped bass, or stripers, sell for about $2.50 a pound wholesale and $9 a pound retail, police said.

Seventy-five percent of the rockfish along the Atlantic Coast spawn in the Chesapeake. An entire economy of sport fishermen, eateries and shops from Maine to North Carolina rely on striped bass for tourism and food.

Protecting a way of life based on a single species of fish falls heavily on Maryland. Because of overfishing, the state placed a moratorium on catching rockfish for five years in the late 1980s.

[seamonkey]

Department of Natural Resources officials are offering a $30,500 reward for tips leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for placing illegal anchored gill nets the first two days in February. A conviction for poaching rockfish carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.



The legal Chesapeake Bay commercial gill net season runs on select days in December, January and February. Last year, Maryland enforced a 2.1 million-pound quota on catches. This year's quota is 1.9 million pounds.
The legal rockfish limit for commercial fishermen is 300 pounds a day. This year in January, the state placed a temporary moratorium on the commercial rockfish fishery when the month's 327,000 pound quota was reached Jan. 12.
At 4 p.m., Rafter and Ford, along with Sgt. Art Windemuth, a police spokesman, sped toward the lighthouse at 20 knots, bouncing along on the waves in a 25-foot Sea Ark.
Windemuth scanned the houses on the shore, one mile away. "They have spotters looking out for us," he said, explaining why poachers are almost never caught. "It's well-known that they pay people to look out."
Rafter chimed in. "It's a small community," he said of Kent Island in Queen Anne's County. "If you're home, they know you're home. They know you're the police officer working this area."

A force of 215 police, thinned by about half since 1990 by budget cuts, patrol 17,000 miles of waterway and DNR-owned public lands, Windemuth said. Officers respond to 20,000 calls a year - including ones for maritime search and rescue, lost boaters, medical assistance and boating wrecks. Six officers patrol Queen Anne's County, police said.
About two weeks ago, Rafter and Ford got lucky. They were on a patrol in 40 feet of water when they noticed a large sunken net. They left the area and returned at night for a stakeout. But although they waited in a freezing rain from 2 a.m. to sunrise, the poacher didn't show.




The net held 6,000 pounds of rockfish, the largest poacher's catch discovered by a single patrol in 25 years.
As they approached the same area Wednesday, acting on the tip, Rafter, Ford and Windemuth swapped stories about arrests. Fishermen hide illegal catches in hollowed out batteries, under false boat floors, in the sleeves of jackets, they said.
Ford spotted the net the tipster had reported, and Rafter barked out directions on how to ease up to it. "Okay, Bob, go ahead and turn your engine hard to the right and back her up!" The boat crept along, waves tossing the phone-booth-sized cabin wildly left and right.
"Okay, Bob, put her in forward and steer to the right!" Rafter barked from the stern. He and Windemuth grabbed what looked like a volleyball net and pulled until they turned red.

[seamonkey]

Up came rockfish, caught in the unforgiving nylon monofilament net - cut, scraped and bloody. A few fish flapped their tail fins, but most were dead.

"See how stretched he is? He's still alive, but see how pale and yellow he is?" Rafter said. "Those last two didn't smell so good." And of another rockfish: "See the color? He doesn't have that nice silver and black look."

Rafter and Windemuth pulled for two hours, painstakingly releasing 27 fish - about 300 pounds worth - from the net's grip with a box cutter. The poacher lost a net worth about $2,500, Windemuth said.

"People ask me, 'Why couldn't you just throw the fish back?' It's not like they're in a holding pen [when they're in the net]. The fish are wrapped up in there. If we let them go, they'll die from their injuries, maybe infect other fish."

Rockfish pulled from illegal nets in the bay and its tributaries are most often sold to wholesale seafood markets. Sometimes they are given to charities such as soup kitchens and churches that raise money with fish fries.

After the sun slid past the horizon, Windemuth slumped against the boat's cabin, sweating despite the chill.

Rafter, muscles tired, flipped open his cellphone as the boat sped to the shore.
"I have 20 beautiful rockfish," he said to a person who notifies charities. "I usually donate them to a charity in Grasonville, but I don't have their number in this phone. Do you know someone else I can give them to?"

[nitestrikes]

Find those guys who the nets belonged to. Should be relatively easy. Then sink every one of their boats. They will never stop. They think it's their God-given right to poach.

[porgy75]

Here is an article about the new hi tech things they are doing to catch the poachers. Good deal.


High-tech gear helps reel in fish poachers

By Greg Latshaw, USA TODAY



A growing number of maritime agencies are waging high-tech battles with poachers illegally fishing the nation's waterways.

Poaching is an ongoing problem for the commercial marine fishing industry, which in 009 was a $38.4 billion business, says Lesli Bales-Sherrod, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Law Enforcement.
Poachers regularly target rockfish, salmon, oysters, scallops, lobsters, endangered sea turtles and other species, authorities say. The devices now being employed to stop them include infrared video cameras, Global Positioning System tracking devices and electronic fencing.

Since January, the Maryland Natural Resources Police has monitored the Chesapeake Bay region with four radar units and two infrared video cameras placed at confidential locations, says George Johnson, the NRP superintendent colonel.
Bales-Sherrod says her office investigated 9,662 fish incidents between 2007 and 2009 but the economic loss from poaching is difficult to calculate. Consumers can be affected in various ways. In some cases, low-value fish is mislabeled and sold as high-value fish, Bales-Sherrod says. Also, if fishers bring in more than their allowed amount, that can drive down the price for a species, she says.
"Without adequate enforcement, those willing to break the law not only potentially harm the resource, but also other hardworking fishermen who abide by the regulations needed to ensure the stocks are sustainable into the future," Bales-Sherrod says.

In February, Maryland NRP found 12.5 tons of rockfish in illegally anchored gill nets in the Chesapeake Bay. The discovery prompted the state to close the commercial rockfish fishery from Feb. 4 to Feb. 25.

Some states — Alaska, Maryland and Washington among them — require fishers to tag their catch, so if illegal products enter the marketplace, they can be traced to their origin, says Michael Hirshfield, the chief scientist for Oceana, a Washington-based group focused on ocean conservation and restoration.
"It's the coming thing," Hirshfield says. "As the technology for tracking becomes cheaper, it's spreading."
Because poachers can use radar to see police vessels coming, police are becoming more sophisticated in their enforcement approach.
Johnson says that later this year, Maryland NRP will launch a feature called "geo-fencing" — the state will be able to draw electronic fences around oyster sanctuaries, which will trigger an alarm when vessels break the virtual barrier.
"This is like a force multiplier for us. It allows us to have more eyes on the water when we have less people on patrol," Johnson says.

Among state enforcement efforts:
•In Washington state, law enforcement obtains court orders to place GPS tracking devices on boats suspected of poaching activity, says Mike Cenci, deputy chief of operations for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The state also deploys video cameras at confidential locations. The cameras have helped catch salmon poachers, he says.
•In South Florida, natural resources police use high-powered spotting scopes to zoom in on poachers, says Katie Purcell, a spokeswoman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The scopes have been effective at catching poachers robbing lobster traps, Purcell says.
•Off the coast of Southern California, investigators first build a case against an offender, then send in a covert dive team to catch a violation in progress, says Lt. Eric Kord of the California Department of Fish and Game. "It's very effective if you've done the proper background and intelligence," he says.

Danny Webster of Deal Island, Md., who fishes for oysters, says he doesn't have a problem with surveillance measures. He says he hopes it stops people who are gaining an unfair advantage by raiding oyster sanctuaries.
"Most watermen are honest, and that will weed out the watermen who aren't. I say get rid of the bad apples and we'll get our respect back," Webster says.

[DarkSkies]

"Most watermen are honest, and that will weed out the watermen who aren't. I say get rid of the bad apples and we'll get our respect back," Webster says.

I agree, most watermen are honest. The bad ones bring a black cloud of notoriety over the whole community, though. More guys who do this for a living need to realize this and help with leads to guys they know are bad. The reality is that these are close-knit communities where everyone knows everyone else's business. The honest guys have to have leads or suspicions of who the main players are in the poaching game. People who work in the business go to bars, hang out with each other, some get drunk, and secrets are spilled. IMO anyone part of that community who has been around for awhile would be able to help the CO's. The question is....Will they help them prosecute the bad guys?

The reality is that the number of cases where they discover guys doing this is much smaller than the actual poaching going on. Someone suggested with illegally discovered catches counting toward the yearly total, this might prompt better cooperation among comm watermen in those areas. I hope so.

to all the guys at DFG/DFW who continue to do their job prosecuting these guys despite the high odds against successful conviction.

[BassBuddah]

So true SM and DS, poachers are not hidden within a fishing community. Most commercial guys know who they are. They also know which Asian seafood stores give the best prices for striped bass, blackfish, and whatever else you want to bring them.

[baitstealer]

I can't stand reading things like this. They should make the penalties stronger so if guys are caught more than once, will lose their license.

[hookset]

What baitstealer said, it is probably a small group of guys that do this over and over again. Get them out of the picture and we will be saving thousands of striped bass from being poached.

[bababooey]

And the problem is that those who are doing it, don't believe it is wrong. They have many ways of justifying it - well I have to pay the mortgage, have to pay for the boat, etc etc.

Those rationalizations can go on forever.

[voyager35]

The Largest Black Market Fish Bust Ever

Thought this was interesting.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/montebur...ish-bust-ever/