Fireworks explode as boats loaded with traps head from the harbour in West Dover, N.S., on Nov. 30, 2020.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Some fishermen and politicians in Nova Scotia are expressing mounting frustration over the scale of unauthorized lobster fishing in the southwestern part of the province.
Colin Sproul, of the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, calls the current situation in St. Marys Bay “outrageous” and dismisses reports of enforcement by federal fishery officials as “patently untrue.”
With the commercial season currently closed, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said in a social media post on Monday that its officers had seized 321 lobster traps in southwestern Nova Scotia since July 17 for non-compliance with regulations.
But Sproul maintains an “industrial level” commercial fishery is still taking place in the bay, although he couldn’t say by whom.
Last week, local Conservative MPs Chris d’Entremont and Rick Perkins wrote to federal Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier saying that urgent action is needed to combat illegal poaching.
St. Marys Bay was the scene of confrontation in September 2020 when the Sipekne’katik First Nation started a pioneering self-regulated lobster fishery.