Ban on baby eel fishery would be 'huge victory' for poachers

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A businesswoman whose family pioneered the baby eel industry in New Brunswick says Ottawa would only be encouraging more poaching if it cancels this year’s fishery.

Mary Ann Holland has shared a letter with Brunswick News that she sent last week to federal fisheries minister Diane Lebouthillier.

The minister has warned she will likely cancel harvesting during this year’s baby eel or elver season because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, isn’t ready to put in a more robust system to stop rampant poaching and violence on the rivers where the delicate, translucent creatures float in from the ocean.

Elver, also known as glass eels, are Canada’s most expensive export seafood, valued for as much as $5,000 a kilogram and destined for dinner tables in Asia.

“I was saddened to receive your letter of February 13,” she wrote to Lebouthillier. “As you know, I have been seeking civil remedies against poachers, the most recent event in same being a decision from the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.

“I believe that enforcement of the law by DFO aided where necessary by the RCMP coupled with my civil suits should make opening the 2024 season in New Brunswick a correct decision by you.”

Holland said cancelling the season would reduce, rather than protect, the stock, because poachers would still be on the water, with no one ensuring the right amount of eels are taken.

“It will represent a huge victory to those who care little about the rule of law,” she warned, adding that a fishing ban would “take away the livelihood of honest, brave, and hardworking citizens of Canada.”

Holland also shared a letter she’d sent earlier to the St. Stephen, St. George and Grand Bay-Westfield detachments of the RCMP, whose jurisdiction covers the rivers that her company, Brunswick Aquaculture Limited, nets every spring.

In it, she implored the police to do their jobs once the season opens.

“During 2022 unauthorized fishing or poaching began on my licensed water courses while my staff and I were engaged in the lawful harvest of elvers,” Holland wrote on Feb. 13, just before she had received the minister’s letter. “This unauthorized activity increased in 2023. There has been a myriad of violent criminal offences carried out against me and those in my employ. Collectively, we’ve been assaulted with weapons, commonly assaulted, criminally threatened and intimidated by poachers/individuals posing as Department of Fisheries and Oceans Officers.”

“As the 2024 season approaches, I am fearful for the safety of both myself and my employees. Understanding that you are the police of jurisdictions on my various licensed watercourses, my expectation is that you will maintain the King’s Peace.”

Holland’s husband Philip started the Rothesay company some 35 years ago, developing the local harvest and markets overseas. When he died in 2003, his widow took over and is now the company’s sole owner.

She has filed a lawsuit against people she’s accused of poaching, a matter that is still before the courts and whose allegations haven’t been proven.

It will represent a huge victory to those who care little about the rule of law

Mary Ann Holland

The Court of Appeal, New Brunswick’s highest court, recently ruled in her favour in one part of the litigation.

Last fall, a lower court in Saint John struck her motion that sought to receive information from the registrar of motor vehicles that would indicate the owners of vehicles parked at the Musquash and St. Croix rivers last spring.

According to Holland’s motion, she had the licence plate numbers of 115 vehicles.

Holland alleges that in March, April, May, and June of last year, dozens of people came to the rivers where she has exclusive rights and caught juvenile American eels, which are designated as an endangered species.

Lawyer Barry Morrison, who represented Holland, told the court that he went with the businesswoman to take photos of people stealing the elvers and described it as “anarchy.”

But Judge Arthur Doyle said there wasn’t enough evidence presented to suggest the passenger vehicles parked by the rivers carried poachers.

On Feb. 8, the three judges on the Court of Appeal over-ruled his decision and ordered the registrar of motor vehicles, Nicole Shorrock, to turn over the names of the registered vehicle owners to Holland’s legal team within 30 days.

They said a written reason would follow later.

– with files from Andrew Bates