Turr Hunters or How To Kill a Fly With a Sledge Hammer.

Turr Hunters Hunted.
On Thursday, March 16th, 2006, an article appeared on the front page of the National Post entitled: "Three year investigation busts turr poaching ring".[1]
The story recounts that over a period of three years, 4 tiers of the Government including three undercover investigators and up to 18 officers from Environment Canada, the Department of Natural Resources, the RCMP and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans were involved in the process of the investigation and subsequent arrests of 9 people from Rose Blanche and Port-aux-Basques. Their firearms, ammunitions, boats and hunting tools were seized. Mr. George Allan Neil, 58 years old, was fined $5,000 and is under a 10-year ban from hunting. It was the largest investigation of its kind in Atlantic Canada.
It was believed that up to 1/3 of the estimated 400,000 birds killed each year were killed illegally. The investigation led to three men who ran the "lucrative" business. At the end of the 2004/2005 hunting season these men had sold approximately 1,000 birds.The men charged $2.50 to $4. per bird for a total between them of less than $4,000. For this money they provided all labour and equipment, hunted the birds, cleaned them and hand delivered them to their fellow Newfoundlanders, mostly locals who had moved into bigger centres, who didn't have the means to hunt for themselves and who had asked someone to do it for them.
Facts:
Turr is a seasonal delicacy in Newfoundland for which many indiginous recipes have been developed, one of which was published in The Post. Eating turr in season in Newfoundland has become an integral part of the culture there, somewhat as it was to eat fresh fish from the river in Spring in the village where I was born, in the days when it was still safe to eat the products of Nature directly without the now enforced processing and marketing. It was something everyone looked forward to, each year.
It is legal for all Newfoundlanders to hunt the birds in season and each person may hunt up to 20 per day and have up to 40 in their possession at any given time.
The population of Newfoundland and Labrador is just over 500,000. Rose Blanche is a small village on the southwestern coast where many residents depend on fishing and hunting to survive.
The average earnings per capita in the Eastern provinces is consistently below that of the other provinces and most Newfoundlanders fall under the poverty line as it is understood by most Canadians.
An estimate of the cost of the investigation that lead to the arrests is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars which far exceeds the return both in terms of dollar amount and in terms of its impact on the bird population.
The individuals who were arrested have been deprived of the tools they need to survive in an environment where few Canadians would be willing or able to cope. A fine of $5,000 can break a family down where disposable income simply doesn't exist.
It is certain that the majority of Canadians, were they asked, would not endorse this type of activity from their Government and would pledge their support to the people of Rose Blanche and Port-aux-Basques who were negatively affected by these actions.