On our last two visits to the Port, we have been up before sunrise to take photos, and on both occasions saw a bunch of divers leave the harbour in two high powered rubber ducks. On the first occasion, I wasn't sure what it was all about, but because they were behaving suspiciously, I took some photos of them. Sure enough, in the newspaper the following day, there was a report about how the Perlemoen (Abalone) poachers had moved to St Francis and were brazenly plunder our coast of these endangered shellfish.
In Asia they are considered to be aphrodisiacs, and some twisted apologies for human beings feel nothing about bringing a species to extinction for a few moments of personal pleasure, so they pay ludicrous prices for the illegal shellfish. This means that there is enough money in poaching them to make it seem worthwhile to risk being imprisoned.
Again on our last visit we saw them, and this time were sure what we were seeing, so we took photos os they left the port, and also of their cars and trailers in the car park.
I am delighted to say that some of them were arrested yesterday, and the two rubber ducks, trailers and diving gear siezed. We are meeting the Marine Task Force tomorrow to give them copies of our photos. I really hope they throw the book at these selfish and greedy characters and send a message to others that the quick bucks they are making are not worth it!
3 comments:
Shame on them!
Shame on them!
Good to see that they were arrested.
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