Three crayfish poachers arrested at Soetwater

[Big Gray]

Last week-end, three men, including a security guard, were bust by MCM, Table Mountain National Parks and SAPS Seaborderline Unit at Soetwater, near Kommetjie. They were caught in possession of 108 lobster tails, 11 lobster tails in berry, 15 whole lobsters and 20 undersize lobsters. An additional 439 tails were found buried in the sand, no doubt to be collected later.
MCM and their partners also found 377 abandoned crayfish tails, 17 tails in berry, 34 whole crayfish and 11 undersized crayfish.
Well done to MCM, TMNP and SAPS.
Man, these poachers are soon going to cost us our crayfishing rights as well.
The way they carry on, I would not be surprised if there will be a ban on crayfishing in the not too distant future.
The three (fill in your own expletive here) appeared in court on Monday.

 

[Elf 786]

Big Gray wrote:

Last week-end, three men, including a security guard, were bust by MCM, Table Mountain National Parks and SAPS Seaborderline Unit at Soetwater, near Kommetjie. They were caught in possession of 108 lobster tails, 11 lobster tails in berry, 15 whole lobsters and 20 undersize lobsters. An additional 439 tails were found buried in the sand, no doubt to be collected later.
MCM and their partners also found 377 abandoned crayfish tails, 17 tails in berry, 34 whole crayfish and 11 undersized crayfish.
Well done to MCM, TMNP and SAPS.
Man, these poachers are soon going to cost us our crayfishing rights as well.
The way they carry on, I would not be surprised if there will be a ban on crayfishing in the not too distant future.
The three (fill in your own expletive here) appeared in court on Monday.

probably out on bail for a couple of thousand R's only, but the damage has been done already.

 

[Def-e-nition]

The bliksems should be Locked up for a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time.
Chop a Pinkie Off , or something .
They Need to PAy man .
when you do something so Wrong, on such a large scale , and you KNOW it's wrong - well - sorry man , then you got to pay .

Jinne this frustrates the K@k out of Me .

 

[Wayne]

Just heard from a mate of mine that last week they observed 11 boats working the Soetwater/Olifantsbos area at night..not sure what happened there but he says the poachers are getting out of hand in the Kommetjie area lately..looks like the MCM,SAPS and so on will have there hands full this season...

A big up to them as well for catching those buggers..hope they get a sentence that will make others think twice about poaching...

 

[Stephen.JG]

arrested only 3????? thats, what?? about 1% of poachers in kommetjie..

last season I took a ride down to kommetjie on my motorbike, wanted to check the guys kreefing from kayaks to see what they were using.. I stopped at 'poachers corner' where most kayaks launch from.. (not implying kayak users are poachers, its just the safest place for kayak guys to launch from)

couple of locals eyeballed me very suspiciously for a while before deciding that I wasn't with law enforcement, then went about their poaching with gay abandon...
one guy even offered me 2 kreef if I would take him for a ride round the block on the back of the bike..(I did not accept the offer, by the way)

about 30 minutes later an old corolla reverses up to the parking lot, suddenly bags of kreef appear from under every rock and bush, they fill up the boot of the corolla and the car speeds off... and the guys go back out on the water to pull more...

 

[Packkies]

Poaching is an age-old problem and especially where people have fallen on hard times - for low income groups it's a means of survival, for people who can afford to buy their kreef its just plain greed!

Areas like Soetwater and Kommetjie would require constant monitoring and i doubt whether MCM has the resources. maybe a civilian guard during open season would help alleviate the problem. Also it's downright f%$#@ing dangerous to split on poachers - we just don't realise how desperate some of these poachers are and would go to many lengths to secure their booty!

Still, "word-up" to the MCM and the like for smoking some of these scoundrels, (they are not the fat, lazy bastards as was alluded to by some on this here forum).