Gear tampering becoming more frequent in Gulf region, says DFO — and that means more ghost gear
Every year, department conducts searches for lost gear to prevent ghost fishing
Gear tampering in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region off P.E.I. is more common than it used to be, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans — and the environmental cost can be high.
"Gear tampering is any action that interferes or disrupts a legal fishery," said Matthew MacEwen, the detachment supervisor in Charlottetown for Conservation Protection with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
"Examples of this could be tampering with traps, nets or lines… causing damage to that fishing gear that renders them incapable of doing their job fishing."
MacEwen said it could include cutting the ropes off traps, making them unretrievable, or bringing traps up from the waters and destroying the webbing and mesh that keep lobsters inside once they enter the traps.
He would not speak to why people might be interfering with other crews' gear, other than to say: "There's a variety of different issues there."
However, last May, DFO issued a statement warning of an increased amount of tampering off Nova Scotia, apparently to prevent Indigenous fishing crews from exercising their constitutional right to a moderate livelihood from harvesting lobster.
MacEwen said DFO's conservation and protection officers dedicate many hours to trying to disrupt gear interference.
When someone cuts lobster traps loose from their mooring, the traps become what's called "ghost gear," drifting in the ocean and continuing to trap lobster that nobody can harvest.
"If they're cutting off the buoy lines, where maybe the fishermen can't retrieve them back, those traps are on the bottom of the ocean floor, and they're continuing to fish until either one, they degrade and they disintegrate, or two, they're retrieved by the fishers or [DFO]," MacEwen said.
Every year after the seasonal fisheries' closing dates, DFO personnel and stakeholders in the fishing industry head out into the water on Canadian Coast Guard vessels to look for lost gear to prevent it from continuing to fish.
At times, MacEwen said, the traps are recovered full of lobster.
"Ghost gear is of huge importance to Fisheries and Oceans as a whole — and especially for conservation and protection — for our habitat, our marine habitat and also for the protection of our fish species," said MacEwen.
In a statement to CBC News, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association said it fully supports conservation officers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans using all technologies to stop illegal activity, given that everyone's top priority is preserving Island seafood resources.
Possibilities of drones are 'endless'
On Oct. 17, a person appearing in court in eastern P.E.I. was given a $5,000 fine and suspended from fishing for the first seven days of the 2025 lobster fishing season.
The offence was tampering with lobster fishing gear in Lobster Fishing Area 26A, which stretches from the northeast tip of Prince Edward Island down to the north shore of Nova Scotia and west to the central south coast of P.E.I.
The person's actions were caught on video by a Department of Fisheries and Oceans drone.
In an interview with CBC News in November, MacEwen said DFO had been using drones to monitor fisheries in the Gulf Region since 2021, but this was the first time that footage had been used in a court case.
"Mainly, our focus is to try to prevent it or also catch those individuals in the act," he said.
MacEwen said aerial surveillance, including drones, also plays a part in locating ghost gear so that a Coast Guard vessel can go to the spot to retrieve it.
"I think the possibilities are endless regarding using drones within our enforcement of the fisheries," he said.
"You picture P.E.I.: We're surrounded by water, you have our inland coastal fisheries such as oyster and clams, gaspereau. To be honest with you, it's going to be an asset for us in every single fishery."
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With files from Maggie Brown