Brittney Hammond and her father Arnold Hammond, of Acadia First Nation, are photographed aboard their boat, the Bud’s Boy, on Dec. 8, in Shelburne, N.S.Meagan Hancock /The Globe and Mail
Lobster season had only just begun in southwestern Nova Scotia when Arnold Hammond of Acadia First Nation steamed down the coast toward Lockeport to check his lobster pots on Wednesday morning.
He was shocked to find his 100 lobster traps, marked with tags indicating he is licensed by a government-authorized Indigenous fishery, had been cut – gear worth $10,000 set adrift or cast to the bottom of the sea.
“I spent every cent I had,” said Mr. Hammond, 62, from Shelburne, breaking down with emotion. “It’s just been one thing after another here.”
The apparent vandalism, now under investigation by the RCMP, happened after Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) increased limits for the number of band members permitted to fish under the Kespukwitk Netukulimk Treaty Rights Protected Jakej (lobster) Fishery, raising the ire of local non-Indigenous fishing associations, which promptly withdrew their support for the treaty fishery.
The treaty fishery, for members of Annapolis Valley, Bear River, Glooscap and Wasoqopa’q (Acadia) First Nations, authorizes 63 harvesters to each fish a maximum 100 traps – a total of 6,300 traps. DFO raised the treaty fishery allotment from 5,250 lobster traps on Nov. 30 after the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs said the initial limits were a violation of their treaty rights. (However, the number still falls short of the 7,500 the chiefs had been advocating for, said Chief Gerald Toney in a statement to The Globe and Mail.)
DFO spokesperson Lauren Sankey said the amendment is proportional to the number of harvesters designated by the communities and won’t result in more lobster being fished from the area, because existing licences are being redistributed.
“This additional access was provided without increasing overall fishing effort, and is being offset by existing banked licences and traps in these areas that are unfished,” she wrote in a statement to The Globe.
The fish harvester associations in southwestern Nova Scotia that pulled their support for the Kespukwitk fishery said DFO failed to act in good faith on agreements and “secretly increased access to the fishery significantly with no justification.”
“The recent turmoil in our industry and communities is a direct result of this government’s failed fisheries policy,” said a Nov. 29 statement from Coldwater Lobster Association, Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association, Brazil Rock 33/34 and Scotia Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association.
Chief Toney said industry is overreacting, based partly on misinformation, and has further escalated harvesters’ safety concerns.
“We don’t necessarily need industry support to exercise our treaty rights but being able to fish alongside one another safely should be important to everyone on the water,” he said. “It has been hard to see any evidence of their ‘support’ to date – with lines being cut, traps busted and ongoing harassment of our harvesters.”
Mr. Hammond says he followed all the rules. He supplied his own vessel – a 26-year-old fishing boat named Bud’s Boy – and spent the summer rigging traps. He and his daughter Brittney Hammond, 35, and his nephew Isaac Hammond, 19, provided their names, vessel and tag information to DFO and the Kespukwitk Netukulimk Treaty Rights Protected Jakej Fishery, before the start of the commercial, regulated season.
Mr. Hammond, who has worked as a captain on his band’s commercial fishing boat for 25 years, said he was hopeful about starting out on his own, to help his family earn a piece of the lucrative lobster fishing industry in the area, commercially worth $409.5-million.
Now, says Mr. Hammond, that dream is gone. There’s no insurance for cut lobster gear and banks won’t lend money unless you have a commercial licence, he added. While he acknowledges he doesn’t know exactly what happened, he said this summer, the motor on his boat was tipped overboard while at the Shelburne government wharf – an act that made him fearful about going back.
“I’m not blaming it on the whole group of people. I’m saying it’s one or two people that done this. Same as last year,” he said. “They’re not going to leave us alone.”
RCMP spokesman Constable Dominic Laflamme says they are in the initial stages of investigating, and are monitoring the situation in southwestern Nova Scotia.
“Operational plans have been prepared, which will ensure a co-ordinated, appropriate and measured approach, if required,” Constable Laflamme wrote in a statement to The Globe.
DFO spokeswoman Debbie Buott-Matheson said fishery officers are on the water every day and are working with Indigenous communities to ensure that all fishing is federally authorized and that harvesters are able to carry on with their activities without interference from others.
But since the season opened in commercial lobster fishing areas 33 and 34, which stretch from Halifax to Shelburne to Digby, in late November and early December, no fishing equipment has been seized for non-compliance with the Fisheries Act and regulations, she added.
Colin Sproul, president of the United Fishery Conservation Alliance and Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association, said some of the moderate livelihood fishery is being attached to commercial vessels, a violation they say DFO is failing to enforce.
When asked about the increased harassment on the water, Mr. Sproul said his members “abhor any conduct like that,” and said people like Mr. Hammond who are trying to start their own family enterprise are “exactly the people we are trying to support.”
“We see them as allies in the fishery and so do our memberships.”