Attorney notes difference between grouper hole and spawning area
Al Elford McLaughlin was fined $150 in Summary Court on 15 May after he pleaded guilty to taking two Nassau Grouper from a designated spawning area during closed season. He was fined a further $400 for allowing more than 10 conch to be loaded onto a vessel during one 24-hour period.
Marvin Gregory Grant, who was charged in the same incident, pleaded not guilty and his trial has been set for 16 July.
McLaughlin’s offences occurred in January 2011 in the vicinity of Coxswain’s Bank off the eastern end of Grand Cayman.
Crown Counsel Candia James told Chief Magistrate Nova Hall that fisheries officers were on patrol monitoring the grouper spawning area. Some time after 7am two men arrived in a vessel. The officers informed the men that they were in a spawning area and they were to release any grouper they might catch.
Ms James said McLaughlin responded by shouting profanities.
The men anchored and continued fishing, Ms James said. McLaughlin caught a grouper and was told to put it back. Instead, he put it in a cooler on the boat. He continued fishing, caught another grouper and put that one in the cooler.
When the officers approached his boat, McLaughlin again shouted profanities and said if they touched his boat he would hurt them.
As to the conch charge, Ms James said one of the officers noticed conch on board the vessel and ordered McLaughlin’s fishing companion to count the conch. The man counted 18 and was told to put eight back in the water.
Attorney Steve McField spoke in mitigation for McLaughlin. “This matter of the grouper and the conch is something I notice coming to the court very often now – especially when these economic hard times are gripping the country.
What was a tradition for hundreds of years has been regularised now by law,” he observed.
There is a virtual grouper hole, Mr. McField said, and McLaughlin believed he was not in it. But there is also a designated geographical area, as the attorney had learned from the officers. There are no buoys out there to identify a conservation area, he pointed out. If someone does not have a Global Positioning System on his vessel, he will not know.
Mr. McField said the men were not employed at the time of the offence; they went out to supplement food for their families, not as commercial fishermen. He asked for the mercy of the court, noting that another defendant in another court had been fined $50 for each grouper he had taken.
The chief magistrate said McLaughlin did get credit for saving the time of the court by pleading guilty. But the aggravating factor was that when the officers confronted McLaughlin and told him the law, he ignored them.
For that reason she imposed a fine of $150 for taking the two grouper and $400 for the conch. McLaughlin was given one month to pay or serve 35 days in default.
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Perhaps a little time in Northward would have helped Mr.McLaughlin learn to have more respect for the law and those who enforce it. He was fortunate to have Steve McField in his sacred vessel.
Since when does a Cayman fisherman need buoys or GPS to find a grouper hole? They knew exactly where they were.
How come he wasn’t charged with threatening the offices? Don’t you put people in jail for that?
I wonder if he is family to Alden.
Hey, hes a McLaughlin!
It’s funny how most of the people on here have no compassion for a man trying to feed his family. Would you prefer that he break into a house and rob some poor unsuspecting family, would you prefer to be held at gun point and robbed. SMH at how little compassion has been shown here. Maybe the next time you can’t feed your family..oh wait, most of the commentators on here at least have a computer and are able to be online..so you WOULD NOT know what it like to NOT be able to have enough food on your table for you family. SHAME, everyone should have that experience at least once in a life time then maybe all this PC garbage will take on a new prospective!
From my reading of the story they were intercepted by the police BEFORE they caught the groupers, were told to put back any they caught and ignored the warning.
Instead they replied with profanities.
They should have been fined extra for being stupid.
I understand that one can be fined thousands for breaking these laws and be put in jail. They got off cheap.
I feel sorry for anyone who is hungry. But I also remember 30 years ago being able to jump off a boat in the North Sound and finding 10 conch in minutes.
Now one is lucky to find one. This is the price of over-fishing.
Befuddled, I now see where you get your name from. you’re confused at the lack of compassion??? You seem to think that if you do not fish, you must therefore seek to break into houses and/or rob banks, as these are the only other options.
I would suggest that most of the commentators here use a work computer (or indeed may own there own), so it hardly suggests decadence. Indeed, these guys may not have a computer, but they do have a boat, with an engine, that requires fuel. These things ain’t cheap, and you think these guys fish using old stockings?
Do what other people do when times are hard, get some 30c packets of noodles and porridge oats – certainly cheaper than a 550 fine for stupidity. Personally, I reckon they should have confiscated the boat and equipment, and then made them write lines of ‘I must stop making stupid decisions’.