So, if the commercial folks are seeing puffer fish I would have thought this would be required reporting. I guess the research on this story is wrong. I will email the reporter and let him know commercial fisherman have been seeing puffer fish since....?
Poisonous puffer fish found in B.C. waters a first for the region, researchers say
by
Travis Lupick on October 29th, 2019 at 12:19 PM
"It’s not known how the puffer ended up on a beach on Vancouver Island, about 70 kilometres west of Victoria. It’s possible it was brought to the region as a pet and subsequently released into the wild or disposed of there after it died in captivity.
It’s also possible the fish swam from California on its own, Gavin Hanke, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Royal B.C. Museum, told
CBC News.
If that was the case, it wouldn’t be the
first time that a species from warmer southern waters somehow made it all the way to B.C."