By Jakob Brooks
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SACRAMENTO (KCRA) — Salmon fishing officially closed on the American and Sacramento rivers in 2023 due to low abundance estimates, but officials on Tuesday said that hasn’t stopped some from illegally capturing and trafficking different species for caviar trafficking.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said while it was on the lookout for extensive illegal fishing activity along the Sacramento River, it discovered multiple illegal fishing operations.
One patrol spotted two different groups trying to evade wildlife officers while tying off illegally possessed sturgeon around 100 yards away from the fishing location. The charges are still ongoing in both cases, but the sturgeon were recovered and released back into the Sacramento River.
During a Dungeness crab trafficking investigation, CDFW said its primary suspect is also believed to be part of a mass salmon poaching operation.
CDFW said another patrol discovered that a primary suspect in a Dungeness crab trafficking investigation was also involved in mass salmon poaching. Authorities seized more than 150 pounds of packaged salmon roe from the suspect, which CDFW estimates that approximately 75 salmon were illegally poached during the river’s closure.
The final investigation led to two individuals being formally charged with take of an endangered or threatened species due to sturgeon poaching, CDFW said. One of the people already had a prior criminal history of American River salmon snagging. White sturgeon fishing is currently limited to catch and release due to being in current consideration to be listed as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act.
CDFW described the illegal operations as “well-organized criminal networks” that used “advanced countersurveillance techniques” to illegally obtain caviar.
CDFW requests that everyone report suspected poaching or illegal fishing to 1-888-334-2258.
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