Dartmouth transport company charged in $250K elver seizure

A transport company located in a Halifax-area industrial park has been charged after a search by fisheries officers last year led to the seizure of roughly $250,000 worth of juvenile eels that officials allege were caught illegally and destined for export through Toronto.

Igloo Transport Ltd. was arraigned last month in provincial court in Dartmouth, N.S., on the charge it possessed, sold or purchased young eels, known as elvers, caught in contravention of the Fisheries Act or its regulations. Two people are also charged in the case.

Last spring’s season was cancelled by the federal fisheries minister following several years of chaos and violence in the highly lucrative fishery, a move that effectively made any elver fishing along Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers illegal.

The charges come as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which has faced heavy criticism over what some observers see as poor enforcement, is introducing new regulations it hopes will help better plug the sale and export of illegally caught elvers.

Elvers fished in Maritime rivers are shipped live, often via Toronto’s Pearson airport, to Asia, where they are raised in aquaculture facilities for food. Demand in the last decade has led to skyrocketing prices and a surge in unauthorized fishing.

But while DFO has long required licences for those fishing for the tiny eels, that has not been the case for people or companies holding them or exporting them, which meant enforcement officers were left with little regulatory authority further up the supply chain. 

The new regulations, which come into force March 1, will require licences to possess and export elvers, and licensees will be required to log the origin of all elvers that come into their facility and all transfers out in a traceability app.

“It’s going to make it much more difficult for those who are fishing elvers unlawfully, or buying unlawfully harvested elvers, or exporting unlawfully harvested elvers to enter the legal supply chain,” Marc Clemens, manager of DFO’s sustainable fisheries policy team, said in an interview this week.

“Because those in the legal supply chain will have licences, will be known to us, will have to report to us on the movement, and we’ll be able to track against their quota all the way through the supply chain.” 

DFO said “based on gathered intelligence,” officers intercepted 60 kilograms of elvers last May in the Burnside industrial park in Dartmouth, N.S. The eels were going to be driven to Toronto and then shipped overseas, a spokesperson said.

An employee of Igloo Transport said the company would not be commenting on the charge. When contacted, Guaping Liang, who is listed as a director of the company, told CBC to call a manager, who subsequently declined comment.

One of the men charged in the case is Matthew Cope, a Mi’kmaw fisherman who has faced fisheries charges related to catching lobster but has asserted he has a treaty right.

Cope said in a phone call with CBC that he was still waiting for the prosecution to give him a copy of the evidence gathered in the elver case. The second man charged declined to comment.

No pleas have yet been entered and the case returns to court in April.

The traceability app being introduced by DFO has been called for by commercial elver fishing licence holders, who have been deeply unhappy about the federal government’s failure in recent years to bring the fishery under control.

But complicating the traceability question are large amounts of elver imports into Canada from the Caribbean, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, as well as from Maine where there is also a thriving fishery, according to Canadian trade statistics.

The data indicates that last year $39 million worth of elvers were brought into the country, most of it to Ontario. The statistics suggest almost all of what arrives in Canada is then exported to Hong Kong.

The problem, according to a DFO analysis of the new regulations published in November, is that this transit through the country “provides an opportunity to launder and disguise” elvers caught illegally in the Maritimes by mixing them with those from foreign countries.

Under the new regulations, licence holders must keep imported and domestic elvers separate in their facilities and track inventories and transfers of each.

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