AR-News: (US FL) Poaching: Predators’ Market

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Poaching goes far beyond illegal hunting. Markets exist for deer and 
alligator meat and hides. Off the Gulf Coast, fishermen pull in thousands of pounds of 
illegally caught grouper, mullet and other fish they sell to seafood 
processors. In Cedar Key, thieves make off with $60,000 worth of clam seeds. 
Much poaching involves protected species like migratory birds and black 
bears. In south Florida, poachers sell sea turtle eggs for $20 to $30 a dozen. A 
sushi restaurant, looking to make a bigger profit, buys sailfish, a protected 
game fish, for $2 a pound and sells it as tuna, which can cost $8 to $14 a 
pound. In Bartow, three brothers were caught with 23 gopher tortoises in the trunk 
of their car. A species of special concern in Florida, gopher tortoises are 
illegal to possess.

In addition to depleting the endangered species, “it’s stealing,” says FWC 
spokesman Gary Morse. “They’re abusing a resource that belongs to all the 
residents.”

Maximizing their attack
The FWC, which arrests about 40,000 people a year for all sorts of 
violations, doesn’t keep statewide records of poaching arrests and violations. (The 
agency plans to begin putting together such a database later this year.) But John 
Moran, a captain with the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission now 
working at Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, estimates that there 
are 100,000 or so poachers in Florida. Studies suggest that authorities only 
catch about 10% of all poachers.







full story:
http://www.floridatrend.com/issue/default.asp?a=5189&s=1 









"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein    

                         /\   /\         
                        >' .' <                                
         There is no justice, just us!  
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