Benoit’s Cove woman fined for use of stainless steel snares
Things didn’t go so well in January for a Benoit’s Cove woman making her first attempt at snaring rabbits in the backcountry.
That is the claim Olivine LeDrew made in provincial court in Corner Brook Tuesday morning after she pleaded guilty to breaching the provincial Wildlife Act on that day in the woods with her husband.
The senior says she was unaware it was illegal to snare a snowshoe hare with stainless steel — a change that was implemented in the 2008-09 season.
As the south shore of the Bay of Islands couple were cutting some wood near Benoit’s Cove, they were approached by a fish and wildlife enforcement officer who was patrolling the area. He had spotted the stainless steel snares, and followed snowshoe prints to find the couple a short distance away.
LeDrew owned up to the error, but said the snowshoe prints that led the officer to the couple were not theirs. She also said she owned only five or six of the 11 stainless steel snares the officer made her take up and which he confiscated.
Defence lawyer Sandi MacKinnon told Judge Wayne Gorman that LeDrew had marked her snares with a blue ribbon, and there was another hunter responsible for some of the snares marked with a different colour.
Nonetheless, she pleaded guilty and the number of snares was not relevant to the elements of the charge.
MacKinnon also told Gorman the type of snare is not identified with the purchase of a licence, and that the onus is on the hunter to know or learn the rules and regulations identified in a separate hunter and trapper’s guide.
Although LeDrew was susceptible to a higher fine and even jail time, Crown attorney Alana Dwyer suggested a $250 fine was appropriate. That total was not contested, and Gorman imposed that sentence.
The judge accepted it as an honest mistake. It was the first offence for LeDrew, who was accompanied in court by her husband, David.
LeDrew said she would pay the fine immediately.