Poachers slapped with $10,000 in fines

By Kim Moar - The Weekly News
Thanks to a perceptive provincial conservation officer with dogged investigative skills, four men have been handed precedent-setting fines totalling more than $10,000 for poaching trout in a protected wilderness area.
John Donald Beeswanger of Waverley, David M.J. Beeswanger of Lower Sackville, Matthew John Beeswanger of Enfield and Frank Kenneth Conrad of Cole Harbour were fined $2,500 each in Dartmouth provincial court last week after pleading guilty to Fisheries Act charges of illegally possessing more than the legal limit of trout.
Three of the men were also fined $337 each for illegally using an ATV in a wilderness area, but did not have their vehicles seized.
In all, 65 trout were seized, 45 more than the legal limit of five trout per person per day.
The men have also been prohibited from fishing in any of Nova Scotia's 33 wilderness protected areas for two years.
The men, who had been fishing in the Waverley Salmon River Long Lake Wilderness Protected Area for years, were spotted by federal Fisheries officer Tim Owen a couple of years ago while he was off duty and canoeing down the river.
While Owen found their actions to be suspicious, he was unable to organize a response at that time.
"Over the winter and into the following year I developed a little intelligence on these guys and found out who they were," he said.
The following spring Owen was once again in the Salmon River area and encountered the same group of fishermen.
This time, however, he had pre-arranged for officers to respond to the scene if necessary, and called in the troops.
Owen said because of the remoteness of the province's wilderness areas, detection of illegal fishing is difficult.
"So when you do catch somebody, you really do have to deal with it seriously," Owen said.
"The fine should have a good deterrent value," he said. Owen said imposing conservation numbers on trout is necessary to make sure the population remains healthy.
George Taylor, past president of Trout Nova Scotia, said he was happy with the sentence imposed.
"The fine was at the level that it may make trout fishermen aware that this is not acceptable, and that wilderness areas are areas that are very special. We've set them aside for a reason, and that's to protect the natural resources, and trout are one of those natural resources," Taylor said.
"When you do a pre-meditated robbing of the trout bank, it's a crime," he said. "So for trout, it's a good day."
As for using ATVs illegally in a protected wilderness area, Raymond Plourde, wilderness co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre said the law is clear.
"All-terrain vehicles and other forms of off-highway vehicles are expressly forbidden by law from going into wilderness areas because they cause damage to the ecosystem," Plourde said.
Plourde said he applauds the heavy fines imposed by the courts and hopes others will heed the warning or face the same consequences.
kmoar@hfxnews.ca