Wildlife poachers active in York Region, symposium attendees told

Yorkregion.com
April 8, 2016
By Lisa Queen

The black market for illegal wildlife products is thriving in York Region, according to experts at a Newmarket symposium on animal poaching.

For example, in April 2014, two Richmond Hill men travelling home from Blind River were found to be illegally transporting 27 pounds of sturgeon fish eggs and four pounds of sturgeon meat.

Sturgeon eggs for caviar can fetch as much as $200 an ounce.

The suspects were fined $20,750 and prohibited from fishing in specified areas for five years.

Just two months earlier, an Alberta trucking company and a Markham truck driver faced a $75,000 fine after illegally transporting 6,350 kilograms of live bighead carp.

In November 2012, multiple agencies working on an undercover operation involving a Toronto man and a Markham business discovered 228 live snakehead fish had been illegally sold, exported and commercialized.

The penalty was a $70,000 fine and 60 days in jail.

Even as far back as June 2003, a Toronto man, stopped on a routine traffic patrol by York Regional Police, was found with 123 live bullfrogs, 10 live snapping turtles and two Midland painted turtles in his car.

He was fined $10,000 for illegal transport.

While many may think of the black market animal trade as happening in foreign countries, it is happening across York Region, the Greater Toronto Area and Ontario, Paula Norlock, a provincial enforcement specialist with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s enforcement branch, told the symposium hosted by Crime Stoppers York Region at the Newmarket Theatre last Thursday night.

“It does happen here. We’re really trying to bring that home, that it’s not just the elephants and rhinos. It’s all the species around the world that are collected and traded,” she said.

“I acknowledge all of our species here are not as impressive and big and fluffy and cute as panda bears and rhinos and elephants, but all species...if you learn about food webs and how everything is connected, every time we lose a species, we may not even know what it offered us for medicinal or even its intrinsic value. When those connections are broken, they’re gone forever.”

People are also importing animals and plants that could threaten Ontario’s ecology, Norlock said.

Robert Baxter, an operations manager with Environment Canada’s wildlife enforcement branch, agreed.

“The Greater Toronto Area, which includes York Region, has a tremendous appetite for endangered species from around the world. They are coming into the GTA on a daily basis,” he said.

“Endangered species crime is happening in York Region, Durham Region, all around the GTA on a daily basis.”

Estimated to be worth about $30 billion a year globally, wildlife poaching is the fourth most lucrative criminal activity in the world, behind narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, David Forster, president of the Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers and the Canadian representative on Crime Stoppers International, said.

“The issue with environmental crimes is they often go undetected. There’s huge financial gain, but when enforcement is typically looking for the illegal trade of guns and drugs and things like that, which pay huge returns to criminals, crimes with (an) environmental basis are often not given that same attention or are able to be hidden by these perpetrators, if you will, but they show the same kind of gain,” he said.

Wildlife can be taken illegally from its habitat and traded on the black market for a number of reasons, Norlock said.

Some people do it for personal reasons, such as adding to their own private collections.

Others, including organized criminals, sell wildlife and wildlife products to people for pets, collections, food, aphrodisiacs, medicines, trophies and jewelry.

Ontario wildlife, including birds, moose, bears, fish eggs and reptiles, can fetch anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to thousands of dollars, Norlock said.

For example, a common snapping turtle can sell for between $75 and $175 online.

A mounted moose head can sell for $3,500.

A large female sturgeon can carry up to 100 pounds of eggs, meaning one fish could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“No species is immune to poaching. Anything that is worth money or is collected, it’s going to happen,” Norlock said.

“As long as there is a market for wildlife, there will be vendors. Where there are vendors, there will be suppliers. And where there are suppliers, there will be harvesters. So, we all have a part in this. Some of us buy those things. We may not be out there actively gathering it up...but we are the ones buying the product or collecting it, so we all have to take our ownership of that.”

While many people in the audience of about 100 expressed frustration with the lack of stiff penalties given to convicted poachers in Ontario, the experts said they have been increasing over the years.

Baxter said he has seen fines triple and quadruple over the past 15 years.

Residents who suspect poaching near their homes or farms can anonymously call Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry tip line at 1-877-847-7667.