Man illegally caught hundreds of crabs in protected area, California prosecutor says
A man is accused of illegally catching hundreds of Dungeness crabs in a Marine Protected Area in California, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife said from Dec. 23, 2020 to Feb. 18, 2021, the defendant had placed more than 90 crab traps in the North Farallon Islands State Marine Reserve, which is located about 30 miles from the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, according to the lawsuit filed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.
Fishing of any kind is prohibited in this protected area.
“... This is the most egregious case of unlawful crabbing activity in San Francisco’s history, as well as the largest incident of unlawful commercial crabbing in any Marine Protected Area in the entire State of California,” the lawsuit says.
State fish and wildlife investigators were able to determine the traps they found belonged to Tam Van Tran, a resident of Vallejo, a statement from the district attorney’s office says.
The lawsuit states that by fishing in an illegal area, Tran gained an unfair business advantage. Prosecutors are seeking $912,500 in civil penalties and court costs from Tran, according to the lawsuit.
McClatchy News was unable to reach Tran or his attorney. Tran, however, told CDFW he was unaware that that “fishing was prohibited in that area,” the lawsuit says.
The CDFW seized the traps and returned more than 250 Dungeness crabs to the ocean, the statement says.
The Dungeness crab business is lucrative in California and brought in more than $30 million in 2020, according to the lawsuit.
CDFW first learned of possible illegal activity from a tip they received from another fisherman, according to the statement.
“He was concerned that this fisherman’s illegal activities would put other law-abiding fisherman in a bad light. This is a large-scale incident of unlawful take from a Marine Protected Area, and we might not have known about it had another commercial fisherman not reported the illegal activity,” Eric Kord, CDFW ‘s Assistant Chief for the Marine Enforcement District, said in a statement.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Man illegally caught hundreds of crabs in protected area, California prosecutor says."
