Vancouver Crab Poachers Caught Selling Their Catch Online

[Chasin' Dreams]

These douche bags were selling Vancouver caught male and female Dungeness Crab on Facebook. Their story was that they were selling for "their uncle who is a commercial fisherman"

DFO went and paid them a visit.

 

[Captain PartyMarty]

Nice I saw that ad yesterday and was thinking something had to be off! Great to hear they got busted! Hopefully they throw the book at them!

 

[littlechucky]

Must be pretty prevalent / easy if fools like that are in the business.

 

[Sotally Tober]

Hope they got more than a ‘slap on the wrist and don’t do that again ‘ !!

The rules/ consequences are way too soft for these scumbags and they will just continue to do whatever they want.

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

Not sure what's going on. Their add is back up on FB tonight minus the picture with the female crab.



https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/520561305559958/

 

[bryce]

Those look male to me not a great pic though

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

Those look male to me not a great pic though

No 100% female. Round abdomen. You can see clearly. The top one you can see clearly is a male. Triangle abdomen.

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

Here ya go:




***EDITING TO ADD SOME TEXT TO EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT IMMATURE VS MATURE FEMALE CRAB IDENTIFICATION AS IT SEEMS A FEW FOLKS HERE ARE MISSING AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION)*** :
When a female Dungeness crab is immature it will have a smaller triangle as part of her larger round abdomen. Some folks can incorrectly ID because of this. (as some of done here on this thread).. As the crab matures that full round abdomen on the female gets more distinct and the smaller triangle lower down on the abdomen will become less noticeable.
**see the photo I added down this thread page from the Alaskan Fish and Game showing this distinction in an immature female.

 

[Rain City]

I hate that you can even sell seafood at all on facebook. There's a guy selling prawns too. Opens the door to all kinds of ****. Also stupid that there isn't a poaching or illegal sale option when reporting them

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

I hate that you can even sell seafood at all on facebook. There's a guy selling prawns too. Opens the door to all kinds of ****. Also stupid that there isn't a poaching or illegal sale option when reporting them

Yup I agree. The thing is that with selling any seafood caught in our waters the seller must provide a commercial license/VRN when asked to prove that the seafood was harvested legally. These sellers here have not done so. DFO knows about it and they know about the female crab in the picture. My only assumption can be that they haven't gone there yet. The people you mention with the prawns say that "you can look at the license when you come to buy them" but when asked what kind of license they have they refused to answer. DFO also knows about them too..
Pisses me off when we are ruled/regulated heavily and when we abide by all the rules we still have to suffer when we lose allocation due to stuff like poaching, mis management, etc etc
I think if we all knew how much poaching is really going on we would all be absolutely floored.

 

[bryce]

Here ya go:

View attachment 50976

I’m well aware of the difference the third one down definitely looks like a male the bottom one I can’t tell I’m not really into arguing about it

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

I’m well aware of the difference the third one down definitely looks like a male the bottom one I can’t tell I’m not really into arguing about it

It's not even a question whether they are or aren't lol. They are 100% females. If you don't think so please take an identification sheet with you if you are going to harvest crab.

DFO looked at the picture and right away said "yup two females. We will look into it."

Now I see the sellers have removed all of the pictures from Facebook again. I will follow up with DFO again tomorrow to see if they have gone to inspect yet.

 

[ryanb]

I’m well aware of the difference the third one down definitely looks like a male the bottom one I can’t tell I’m not really into arguing about it

Not sure who you and Adam Berry are, but those are clearly females. Weird that you would want to argue that...

 

[bryce]

Not sure who you and Adam Berry are, but those are clearly females. Weird that you would want to argue that...

Who is Adam berry
And did anything get done here?

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

DFO has confirmed there is an investigation going on with these poachers.

Hopefully DFO will update me with information after they complete their investigation but they aren't obligated to do so.

 

[Saveth]

Who is Adam berry
And did anything get done here?

I'll come to your rescue because I feel like you aren't being treated fairly.
#1 is a male
#2 is unknown
#3 is 100% a male also. You can clearly see part of the triangle abdomen where the claw is.
#4 is unknown

I understand some of you guys are really passionate about catching poachers. Good for you guys, but don't let that passion cloud your judgement. I can't be the only one that has witnessed DFO make a mistake.

 

[Whitebuck]

DFO doing something about this?? LOFL!!!!

Probably have the same result as all the illegal salmon sales on craigslist during the summer and fall!

Its also funny that one of the people on this thread thought he wacked a spring and was very adamant it wasnt a wild coho, when in fact it was 100% a wild hook nosed Coho...lol.

 

[ChinookExerciser]

This person was selling all last summer

 

[CIVANO]

#4 is 100% female no question about it

 

[Chasin' Dreams]

I'll come to your rescue because I feel like you aren't being treated fairly.
#1 is a male
#2 is unknown
#3 is 100% a male also. You can clearly see part of the triangle abdomen where the claw is.
#4 is unknown

I understand some of you guys are really passionate about catching poachers. Good for you guys, but don't let that passion cloud your judgement. I can't be the only one that has witnessed DFO make a mistake.

You are absolutely wrong and please don't spread that kind of information to people that may not know how to completely identify male/female dungeness crab. What you are mistaking as a small triangle on the LOWER abdomen on the female is exactly that... a tell tale of an immature female.
Please people do your research before going to harvest seafood and before you give advice to others.

Here is where you are going wrong and hopefully this will clear it up for you (and a couple others here..)

Here's a link for you to read more on it and can help you with proper identification: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=dungenesscrab.photogallery&number=6