Striking fishery officers stand aside as poaching continues for lucrative baby eels

A week and a half after Wine Harbour Fisheries was ordered to pull its baby eel — or elver — nets out of the water, poachers are at work on the Liscomb River, 170 kilometres from Halifax on the Eastern Shore.

"Our net should be here, not some illegal fisherman," says Brenda Golden, a co-owner of Wine Harbour Fisheries.

Golden is looking under the Liscomb River bridge where a fine mesh net supported by floats stretches into the black foamy water.

She has no doubts it's there to catch hugely valuable, tiny, translucent "glass eels" that are shipped live to Asia and grown for food. They can fetch up to $5,000 a kilogram.

Hoping to have the net removed, Golden's daughter reported it to the local Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) on Tuesday.

"She contacted DFO here in Sherbrooke. She was told to the best of my knowledge that they are on strike and will not be coming to look after it. This net could be full of eel, dying. Where's conservation? Where's DFO doing their job?" Golden said in a riverside interview.

CBC News asked the department for comment on this incident and the impact of the ongoing Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) strike on its ability to rein in widespread illegal harvesting.

After this story was published, a spokesperson for federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray provided a statement that said in part: "To maintain operational integrity, we do not disclose the number of active officers, what specific enforcement activities they are undertaking, nor where those activities are taking place."

The statement also encouraged members of the public to report any contraventions of the Fisheries Act to Crime Stoppers, the provincial fisheries department or their local DFO detachment.

Meanwhile, a union official who represents striking fishery officers said they are not patrolling rivers.

Scott Mossman is the local president of the Union of Health and Environment Workers, which is part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

He says while many fishery officers are designated essential to protect the safety of Canadians, they are only enforcing shellfish contaminated areas to ensure people do not get ill.

"Though fishery officers are usually patrolling to enforce conservation measures and laws for fish species, currently that is not a function that is deemed essential for the safety and security of Canadians, therefore, patrols to enforce closures and other laws related to conservation and catches are not being done during this period of the strike," Mossman said in a statement to CBC News Wednesday night.

"Though there are concerns with violence between persons within fisheries such as the illegal elver fishery, fishery officers are not empowered to enforce public safety other than [what] was linked directly to their authority under the Fisheries Act. That role falls to the police force of jurisdiction such as the RCMP."