Morley Knight

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  Canadian fisheries officials seize Portuguese trawler... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/30/2005    Last Visited: 6/1/2005  

  "The vessel remains under our custody and we will be maintaining custody of the vessel and continuing our investigation," said Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection for the federal Fisheries Department in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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  DFO Failures -- Ocean Mismanagement -- Harpseals.org - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/31/2005    Last Visited: 1/31/2007  

  "This is a very serious matter and this is a very important case for the fishing industry," said Morley Knight, DFO's director of conservation and protection for the Newfoundland and Labrador Region.
  ...
  Knight said several additional charges were laid in connection with the case in August and again in January.
  ...
  Knight could not say what role, if any, Dyson might play as the case proceeds.
  
  'Before the courts'
  
  "It's before the courts, and it remains to be seen how the other parties and other people charged will respond to the charges," he said.
  
  Knight said misreporting of catches is considered a serious hindrance to proper conservation and management of crab, a lucrative species that has been in decline in recent years.
  
  In cases where misreporting is suspected, Knight said DFO would "leave no stone unturned" in carrying out its investigations using all available high-tech methods at their disposal for everything from evidence recovery to forensic auditing.

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  NATIONAL POST ONLINE | News story - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/23/2002    Last Visited: 3/23/2002  

  Morley Knight, director of conservation at the federal Fisheries Department, said there's evidence to suggest the Faroese have been misreporting their catches, and two ships have been spotted in zones where only one vessel is allowed.
  
  As well, the Faroese have failed to provide the required number of reports from observers aboard their vessels.
  
  "The Faroe Islands is one of the countries we're most concerned with," Knight said in an interview."We're not ruling out that there could be other actions taken."

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  Newfoundland and Labrador Newspaper : The Independent - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/29/2005    Last Visited: 4/24/2006  

  Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, says enforcement officers can't prove the lights were turned off to coincide with the dumping of the net.
  
  He did offer an analogy, however.Years ago, federal Fisheries officers were giving a seminar on the south coast and the lights went out.Seconds later one of the officers was hit in the head with a rubber boot.
  
  "Do you think there was any correlation between the lights going out and the boot being thrown?"asks Knight, who notes the trawl of the Odoevsk was unshackled - not cut.
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  Knight says the Russians accepted the findings of Canadian inspectors and immediately revoked the vessel's licence.
  
  "The quick action by Russia here indicates a firm willingness to deal with this," he says.
  
  "We realize that ordering a vessel to cease fishing activity and suspending its NAFO licenses, in and of itself, is a significant penalty."
  
  Under NAFO rules, it's up to the home country of a vessel charged with illegal fishing to follow through with court action.
  
  Knight says the Russians will conduct a further investigation "based on (Canadian) findings."He says the Russian's "quick action" is "exactly" what federal Fisheries want to see when foreign fleets break the rules.
  
  "I don't know what the balance of proof is in a Russian court, but in a Canadian court, given all the evidence, including the lights (going) out, there would be a fairly compelling case I would think."
  
  Knight says the captains of foreign vessels will always play a "cat-and-mouse game" with fisheries inspectors if the value of the catch is worth more than the penalties they face.
  
  "If you study fisheries compliance issues throughout the world, I think you'll find that that is an element of the equation," says Knight.

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  News | canada.com network - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/30/2005    Last Visited: 5/30/2005  

  "The vessel remains under our custody and we will be maintaining custody of the vessel and continuing our investigation," said Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection for the federal Fisheries Department in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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  Paid allies - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/1/2005    Last Visited: 2/9/2006  

  Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection with DFO in St. John,s, says the latest incident was more a concern for what inspectors couldn,t see.
  
  ,Upon inspecting the after part of the main hold, our inspectors found continuing boxes of Greenland halibut (turbot) below three boxes of hake,, Knight tells The Independent. ,The master then stopped the inspectors from moving any more boxes.,
  
  Knight says there was no way to know how much turbot was actually onboard after the master refused them further access to the main hold.The ship is now en route to its homeport of Spain where it,s expected to be inspected by local officials.
  
  The story, says Knight, is similar to citations laid April 17 against the Matrioska , a Russian-flagged vessel that ports in Spain.The ship was cited for over reporting its catch of shrimp by 12 tonnes.

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  The Telegram - St. John's - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/15/2006    Last Visited: 3/16/2006  

  "This is a very serious matter and this is a very important case for the fishing industry," said Morley Knight, DFO's director of conservation and protection for the Newfoundland and Labrador Region.
  ...
  "We did the searches based on reasonable probable grounds that offences of misreporting of crab had been committed â€" we knew that from the preliminary inspection we did in the fall of 2003," Knight noted.
  
  On June 30, 2005, following more than a year of investigation, some 80 charges were laid related to the misreporting of crab catches against seven people and three companies.Knight said several additional charges were laid in connection with the case in August and again in January.
  
  The preliminary inquiry related to the remaining charges and individuals is expected to go ahead in May.
  
  Knight could not say what role, if any, Dyson might play as the case proceeds.
  
  ‘Before the courts'
  
  "It's before the courts, and it remains to be seen how the other parties and other people charged will respond to the charges," he said.
  
  Knight said misreporting of catches is considered a serious hindrance to proper conservation and management of crab, a lucrative species that has been in decline in recent years.
  
  In cases where misreporting is suspected, Knight said DFO would "leave no stone unturned" in carrying out its investigations using all available high-tech methods at their disposal for everything from evidence recovery to forensic auditing.

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  The Telegram Online - Top Stories - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/23/2002    Last Visited: 3/23/2002  

  "In our opinion, it was not a reason why we shouldn't have come aboard that vessel," says Morley Knight, DFO's director of conservation and protection."The net wasn't out at the time, but they had been recently fishing and we wanted to go aboard and do an inspection," he said Friday.
  
  The Russian trawler had an observer on board while fishing off Newfoundland in international waters, which are governed by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO).
  
  Under NAFO rules, the observer (who is also from Russia) doesn't have to file a report until 30 days after the ship returns to its home port.
  
  The Olga is tied up in Long Pond, Conception Bay South, facing a number of charges by Environment Canada on an unrelated matter.
  
  ...
  Knight said Friday he had no idea whether the Olga has been charged with any other fishing violations in recent years.
  
  That information is extremely hard to keep track of, he said, because fishing vessels often change ownership.
  
  "Certainly, in recent months, that vessel has been giving us some concern," Knight said.
  
  Since Jan. 1, Canada has noted eight NAFO infractions by foreign vessels fishing on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks, as well as the Flemish Cap, a shrimp-rich fishing zone about 70 kilometres outside Canada's 200-mile territorial limit.
  
  Knight said the eight infractions don't include those reported by the European Union, which also has a patrol vessel in the area.
  
  He had no idea how many infractions may have been reported by the EU patrol vessel or the observers stationed aboard the individual foreign fishing vessels.The observers are almost always from the ship's country of origin.
  
  DFO suspects not all fishing violations are being recorded by the observers, which was one of the reasons behind Canada's decision Thursday to ban fishing vessels from the Faroe Islands from its ports.
  
  Ships from the Faroe Islands are allegedly catching shrimp in an area where they're restricted (fishing zone 3L off the northeast coast), and reporting the shrimp as having been caught in an area where they are allowed to fish (the Flemish Cap).
  
  ...
  Knight had no idea how many of the citations issued by Canada actually resulted in penalties or court action.
  
  "This process, to be brutally honest with you, is a very difficult one."
  
  At any given time, there are up to 35 foreign vessels fishing shrimp on the Flemish Cap and another 35 ships chasing groundfish off the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks.
  
  In 2001, it's estimated that 5,000 tonnes of American plaice, a species of flounder that's currently under moratorium, was taken by foreign vessels.An estimated 1,000 tonnes of cod was also taken.

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  The Telegram Online - Top Stories - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/22/2002    Last Visited: 3/22/2002  

  Fisheries and Oceans has no jurisdiction to lay charges because the fish was caught in international waters regulated by NAFO, said Morley Knight, DFO's director of conservation and protection.
  
  "Any enforcement of fishing offences that occur in a NAFO regime are carried out by the home nation of the vessel," Knight said Thursday."Our ability to do anything about it is limited to bringing the matter to the attention of the Russian authorities, which we have done."
  
  Knight said the frozen cod will remain on the ship.The illegal catch was found during a routine inspection by DFO officers when the Olga anchored in Long Pond for repairs.
  
  The captain and mate of the vessel face several charges in connection with the release of an oily substance from their ship 83 miles southeast of Cape Race in an area frequented by migratory birds.
  
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  The Telegram Online - Top Stories - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/31/2002    Last Visited: 5/31/2002  

  Morley Knight, director of conservation and protection with federal fisheries in St. John's, said the number of violations recorded last year were in line with years previous.
  
  "Last year was about an average year," Knight said, adding the months between April and October (the range The Telegram requested) are usually the busiest for fisheries officers.
  
  Knight said an average of about 600 cases a year end up before the courts.
  
  The Telegram's request for a computer printout of domestic fishery violations was received by officials with the federal fisheries department in Ottawa in early January.
  
  At about the same time, The Telegram filed a similar request for copies of fisheries citations levelled against foreign ships on the Grand Banks.
  
  That request is still outstanding, with Ottawa refusing to release copies until permission is given by the home countries of the fishing vessels in question.There's no word yet on when the request will be answered.
  
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