Quote:
Originally posted by bart
beavertail and black point are where i saw the most poaching taking place. in both spots i saw people filleting short fish on the rocks and then hiding them. One guy told me he saw them put a fillet down his shirt so that it wouldn't be visible when he came up the path. i called the DEM hotline a coupla times and they never showed up.
i'm sure this has already been mentioned before but maybe you could suggest posting signs detailing what will happen (ie. fines, confiscation of personal belongings, etc.) in a coupla different languages.
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One thing that was promoted a couple years ago by the Newport club was to post regs in many languages regarding bag limits / fines. I fully concur that it is a relatively low cost enforcement tool that could be implemented.
One thing to keep in mind is that RI DEM does not have a lot of EPOs to go around doing this work. One thing that was explained to us was that there are
37 (edited the number as I was off) some EPOs in the state to cover inland enforcement, FW recreational fishing, SW Rec fishing, Commercial fishing, Environmental concerns / disasters. Even though they have added 8 or so officers this year, they only have something less than 42 officers to handle inland (where the senior officers apparently like to work), investigations, covering 3 8 hour shifts per day, court dates, weekends, shellfishing, the fish dealers, etc. So even if they increased EPOs by 50%, they would still be way undergunned for coverage. Also, the EPOs hired actually go thru the states police academy and are real officers in addition to their environmental specific training.