A Miami man caught trying to import into the United States hundreds of pounds of fish illegally caught in The Bahamas has been slapped with a $10,000 criminal fine and time served in a criminal conviction under the Lacey Act in Florida.
Fifty-year-old Miami resident Alberto Roman pleaded guilty to the single charge against him, and was sentenced in Miami recently for attempting to import about 875 pounds of fish “of various species taken in the vicinity of Cay Sal Banks,” according to a press release from the US Department of Justice.
It appears that Roman caught the fish in May 2005 from his boat, the My Tingum. Officers of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission inspected the boat on Romanﾒs return to Marathon, Florida. The officers determined that Roman did not possess a Bahamian permit to fish in Bahamian waters.
The Justice Department said a GPS receiver found on the boat established that it had been operating in the Bahamian fisheries zone, and “it was also revealed that Roman was a former commercial fisherman and had been personally placed on notice by Bahamian enforcement authorities of the requirement for a cruising permit.”
As a conservation measure, the US federal Lacey Act “gives reciprocal support and enforcement authority to US agencies to implement such measures established by treaty, foreign, state, municipal and tribal law.”
The Justice Department notes that The Bahamas regulates and manages its domestic fisheries through the Fishery Resource Jurisdiction and Conservation Act, which addresses both commercial and recreational fishing activity.
Minister of Marine Resources Leslie Miller told the House of Assembly during his contribution to debate on the 2006/2007 Budget recently that his ministry was seeking to change the sports fisheries regulations, which he said “have remained essentially the same since 1986.”
“All catch limits,” the minister told the House, “will be changed from being expressed in terms of ﾑper person per dayﾒ to ﾑper vessel per day.ﾒ”
However, the Department of Fisheries regulations to which the minister refers ﾖ the Fisheries Resources (Jurisdiction and Conservation) Regulations, 1986 ﾖ do not say ﾑper person per day.ﾒ
Section 10 of the regulations, titled “Sportsfishing,” sets out the bag limits for sports fishing vessels in The Bahamas.
Section 10b(ii) states in part, “the bag limit for kingfish, dolphin and wahoo is a maximum combined total of six fish per persons on the vessel, comprising any combination of these speciesﾅ”
Section 10b(iii) states, “vessel bag limits for other fishery resources are 20lbs of scalefish, 10 conch and six crawfish per person at any time. The possession of turtle is prohibited. The above amounts may also be exported by the vessel upon leaving The Bahamas.”
In neither section of the regulations do the words ﾑper dayﾒ appear. The regulations say explicitly that the limits represent a “maximum combined totalﾅfor each person on the vessel.”
Director of Fisheries Michael Braynen told the Journal that the regulations have in the past been construed to mean “at the time of inspection” ﾖ should those aboard a vessel happen to dock and stash their catch and go back out for another round without having been inspected, the limits listed in the regulations only apply to that inspection.
As long as the product is not on board (at the time of inspection), it may as well not exist, he explained, adding that the practice has been for the fishers to count each person on the vessel when the catch is being inspected, including those not fishing.
The revamped regulations ﾖ which may not contain the words “per day” at the end of the process ﾖ will reduce the amount of fish someone can have at any given time, but Mr. Braynen concedes that it will be no easier to police the vessels.
As evidenced by the Roman arrest, Mr. Braynen pointed out that Floridaﾒs enforcement authorities are aware of The Bahamas fisheries laws. If it can be proven that the fish were taken illegally from another countryﾒs waters, or exported illegally from that territory, the Lacey Act applies.
By: Quincy Parker, The Bahama Journal
