Fishers say closure of lucrative baby eel fishery won’t stop poaching in Maritimes

 By Keith Doucette THE CANADIAN PRESS HALIFAX- Ottawa’s decision to close the lucrative elver fishery on rivers in the Maritimes won’t prevent illegal fishing of the baby eels, a commercial licence holder in Nova Scotia said Tuesday. Stanley King said the federal Fisheries Department has moved too slowly to put in place enforcement measures that could have allowed for a 2024 season. “The poaching will continue unabated as it has for the previous two closures,” King predicted in an interview Tuesday. “The government should know by now that closures don’t work, especially when they are not enforced.” He added that only 60 arrests resulted from 1,400 complaints made last year to the federal Fisheries Department. In announcing this season’s closure the department said fisheries officers would enforce the ban and…

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