Commercial elver fisher accuses Indigenous groups of poaching

A legal battle is brewing in southwestern New Brunswick between a licensed commercial eel fisher and some First Nations fishers. 

Mary Ann Holland, who has been fishing elvers since 1988, is accusing several Indigenous groups and individuals of poaching elvers in waterways where she has exclusive rights to fish. 

She has applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for an injunction to stop them from fishing and from threatening and intimidating behaviour toward her fishers. 

The parties were in court on Wednesday, but lawyers recently hired by some defendants requested more time. As a result, the hearing was adjourned until May 13. 

On April 29, the defendants were ordered by the judge to stop "threatening, coercing, harassing or intimidating" the plaintiff and the plaintiff's fishers. The defendants were also ordered to stop fishing the plaintiff's designated watercourses and "ordering, directing, persuading, aiding, abetting and encouraging" others to do so. 

But in an affidavit filed with the court on May 3, Holland said the defendants were back on the water the same day the judge made the order. In fact, Holland said an even larger group was present late on April 29 when she and her lawyer, Barry Morrison, arrived at the Magaguadavic River to deliver copies of court documents. 

According to the statement of claim, Holland's commercial licence gives her "exclusive rights" to fish elvers in a number of waterways in southwestern New Brunswick

Holland operates the fishery under co-plaintiff's Brunswick Aquaculture and Alder Seafood. 

"As indigenous people, in addition to receiving funding from the Government of Canada, the Maliseet are entitled to engage in a limited moderate livelihood commercial fishery in their traditional territory to secure necessaries …," according to the statement of claim. 

The document goes on to say that "elvers have never been caught by the Maliseet for food, social, or ceremonial purposes." 

The document said Holland's fishers were going about their business on the nights of April 26, 27, and 28 when they were "interrupted and hampered" by the defendants. As the court documents explain, elvers, or baby American eels, are harvested at night on high tides as they enter watercourses on their way upstream. 

In Holland's affidavit, she says, "the most egregious event" took place on the Magaguadavic River on April 27 "when more than 30 members of the Defendant First Nations and other Defendants swarmed their way onto the banks of the river in intimidating manner where the Plaintiffs' fishers were catching elvers and positioned themselves and their nets so as to reduce the number of elvers which could be caught by said fishers … and proceeded to poach the elvers for themselves." 

The statement of claim said two officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans told the defendants they were poaching and instructed them to stop, "but the defendants arrogantly and in a high handed manner refused to stop and successfully harvested for themselves a substantial number of elvers." 

The plaintiffs say the defendants refused to identify themselves that night, saying instead that they were fishing under the authority of their chiefs.