searching for poachers by the light of the moon

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Natural Resources Police fightpoaching with all-night stakeoutsBy KERRY DAVIS, Capital News Serv ice

Published 03/05/11

EASTERN SHORE -- It's just after 12:30 a.m. on a recent weeknight and Natural

Resources Police Cpl. Roy Rafter, 48, is driving on the Eastern Shore to a stakeout near

an oyster bed that he's heard is being illegally raided at night.

The plan is for Officer Drew Wilson todrive an unmarked vehicle and drop off

Rafter within view of the oyster sanctuary.

They don't use their regular police trucks

for fear of being spotted in small

communities where they're not terribly

popular with some folks.

It's about 30 degrees out.

They wear warm, dark clothing. They bring

extra hats, gloves and Rafter's specialty -

a huge thermos of hot chocolate that

holds about half a gallon.

Natural Resources Police officers like Wilson and Rafter are up against staggering odds.The force is down to an allocation of 247 from 440 in 1990. Officers responded to 20,394

service calls in 2010, up nearly 39 percent from 2001. They are responsible for roughly

17,000 miles of shoreline, including tributaries.

This year's fishing season has seen the largest rockfish poaching bust in more than 20

years. It was Rafter's own homemade grappling hook that caught the first net on Feb. 1

near Kent Island. Officers found 13 tons of illegally caught fish over the next few weeks,

sometimes working 18-hour days to haul in nets.

An Early Morning On the Water

12:54 a.m. The officers should be on their way to the stakeout. Instead, they are standing

in a parking lot, plugging latitude and longitude coordinates into a handheld GPS.

A radio-controlled perimeter around an oyster sanctuary near the Bay Bridge has sent out

an alert and a quick check shows two boats driving through the sanctuary.

The alert went out from the Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network, a system of

radar and cameras set up in four locations around the Chesapeake Bay and paid for by a

Homeland Security Grant.

The two officers change plans, driving instead to the Department of Natural Resources

facility on Kent Island, where the boat Rafter usually uses is moored.

Rafter and Wilson are the only officers patrolling this half of the Chesapeake Bay tonight.

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of 5 3/26/11 12:08



1:49 a.m. "There's my baby," Rafter says as he pulls alongside the 25-foot "Talbot."

The officers load equipment and climb aboard. They work in tandem without speaking

much.

Rafter, a barrel-chested former waterman, left fishing for good in 1998 after two years in

law enforcement, joining the NRP a few years later. Drew Wilson, a 23-year-old native of

Dorchester County, just reached his second year with the force.

Wilson started drinking coffee at home but brought an energy drink as part of hissupplies, in case he gets tired.

1:56 a.m. In spite of oppressive darkness, Rafter starts the boat and pulls out of

Matapeake Harbor.

"I'm not going to put any lights on," Rafter says, fearing that extra illumination could be

the only tipoff poachers or potential lookouts would need to spot the boat.

2:04 a.m. We pass underneath the Bay Bridge, gunning for the oyster sanctuary on the

other side of Love Point. The eerie glow of multiple navigation screens is the only light

inside the cabin.

2:12 a.m. Wilson is holding night vision goggles to his eyes, scanning the shoreline while

beside him, Rafter carefully pilots the Talbot through dangerously shallow water.

The depth meter reads 2.3 feet ... 2 feet ...

Rafter abruptly swings the Talbot's bow so that it points away from Love Point.

He likes the Talbot because she's made for sleuthing. She has a shallow draft, so she can

hug the shoreline and a poacher's radar might not register her as different from the shore.

2:14 a.m. A half moon hangs low over the water on this side of the bay, a bright yellowish,

orange glow that reflects off of the gently rippling water.

Wilson swaps the night vision goggles for regular binoculars. He struggles to search the

area directly in the path of the reflecting moonlight. The men say a poacher will often

work with a tiny flashlight, which aids police by showing up as a bigger and brighter light

when viewed through night vision goggles.

But on nights like this, poachers could just work by the light of the moon.

2:17 a.m. "Damn moon," Wilson murmurs.

Rafter exhales, watching the depth finder add foot after foot of water. The Talbot is in the

clear and Rafter accelerates away from Love Point.

Rafter sees his role as a protector of the resources he so loves.

Both men talk about the toll the job takes on their personal life.

It requires an understanding spouse. Rafter's been married to the same woman for 31

years. She sometimes makes a pot of soup and freezes it so Rafter can heat it up when

he's on the boat during busy times.

2:29 a.m. Rafter has called dispatch again and reached the logical conclusion - there are

no poachers in the Strong Bay Oyster Sanctuary tonight.

He thinks that tug boats near the sanctuary triggered the alarm and says the system is

still being adjusted for sensitivity.

Rafter decides to continue to the Corsica River to check some known poaching areas.

3:05 a.m. Rafter flips a switch and suddenly a bright search beam comes from the top of

the boat, then jerks over, over, over, before coming to rest on a spot reflecting back some

light. Rafter pauses a moment, then continues to move the light around, looking for

poachers.

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"Since we're not going to go any farther, I'm not afraid to light it up," Rafter says.

"I want to catch somebody," Wilson says.

The light only stays on for a few minutes before they move on.

3:31 a.m. "This is where we caught those boys the other day," Rafter says, once they've

reached the Possum Point Oyster Sanctuary in the Corsica River.

It took Rafter a week of overnight stakeouts before arresting six men in the daytime on

Feb. 21.

Rafter says once the men spotted him, they dumped the oysters in the river before

coming ashore. But, he says, he had already run for about a mile and crawled on his belly

across an open field before snapping pictures. With that evidence, the men were charged

in Queen Anne's County. All but two had oyster licenses on file with the state.

The oyster population is between 1 and 2 percent of historic levels.

3:40 a.m. Rafter offers more of his hot chocolate, a concoction that still steams as he

pours it out of his beaten-up thermos. It isn't a special recipe, just powdered chocolate

and hot water. But out here, in the quiet otherworldliness on the water, it tastes like a $5

blend from Starbucks.

Rafter says he is being paid tonight through an overtime poaching fund. Covering the Bay

requires both staff flexibility and overtime funds.

The Department of Natural Resources' Kathy Lantz, the chief administrative services

employee, said the Natural Resources Police spent $792,000 in overtime in fiscal year

2010 for field operations.

3:54 a.m. "We'll leave the lights off just in case," Rafter says, as he heads back down the

river toward the bay. He and Wilson are hoping to catch a poacher so they are still using

covert techniques, like leaving the search light and other lights in the cabin of the boat off.

Legislators are trying to help the Natural Resources Police, proposing bills this General

Assembly session that would pay for more officers and increase penalties for poachers.

Sen. Brian Frosh, D-Montgomery, said he knows how difficult it is for Natural Resources

Police to do their jobs.

"The bay is a big place and there are people out there poaching oysters and it makes it

incredibly lucky and incredibly difficult," Frosh said. "When they catch somebody it's really

lucky because there are so few DNR police."

4:29 a.m. "Shoot," Rafter says. He's turned on all the lights inside and outside the cabin,

and is steaming for home. And for the first time, he's able to see that the gas gauge is

low. Alarmingly low.

Rafter explains that internal rules dictate that whoever used the boat last should fill it up

to at least a half tank of gas, but clearly that hasn't happened here, as half a tank can last

for about 10 hours on the water.

4:48 a.m. There is an ominous sputtering sound, then silence. We're just 10 minutes from

the DNR dock on Kent Island but we're stuck in the middle of the bay, bobbing near the

Bay Bridge. Rafter is embarrassed and apologizes before calling the next officer on duty.

Both officers say they have never been stuck without gas before.

Time passes and Rafter spends much of the wait on the deck of the now anchored boat,

wearing a flannel shirt over a fleece pull-over and worn blue-jeans. He doesn't wear any

gloves, just stands on the deck and watches the water, occasionally making phone calls.

He comes back inside a few times, saying he called the officer who had last used the

boat. Rafter is told mechanics didn't want more gas in the boat because it was scheduled

for maintenance

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Sgt. Art Windemuth, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Police, later said the officer

who last used the boat should have written in the Talbot's maintenance log that it was

being taken out of service.

6:12 a.m. Rescue arrives in the form of two officers on one of the older boats. They lash

the Talbot to the side of their boat, her rubber sides making it quicker to tow the boat than

wait to fill her up with gas. But it's a slow pace back.

7:21 a.m. We arrive at the dock with a gracefully executed twirl, thanks to a push from our

towers.

The sun is up. It's a beautiful dawn.

Rafter and Wilson are running through their end-of-shift chores: Filling the Talbot with

gas, unloading gear and washing the deck.

From here, both officers are going home to get some sleep. Rafter will pull a night shift

again the following night.

Wilson explains it this way: Whereas some officers might take a night off after a

successful week-long stakeout, that's not Rafter's style. He's a worker and he's

dedicated. He will be back at the stakeout point that he was pulled away from,

determined to catch more poachers.

Copyright © 2011 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism

Copyright © Capital Gazette Communications, Inc., 2011.

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Theft of fish - 2011-03-09 07:44:07

Mr.Harrell,I agree Theft is theft and the Truth is still the truth.Not all watermen are thieves,and youshould be careful of such reckless generalizations.Mr.Wood,I am not a waterman. I am a concerned

citizen with nearly 20 years of reading,interviewing,going over scientific reports,meetings,research

papers and hands on experience.What have you done to learn about this industry?I am concerned

about the misleading articles placed in newspapers that do not put the complete story out for

readers to form an educated opinion. You have been drinking the Kool Aid for so long that you no

longer care to dig deeper than what you read in the papers and see on TV. Didn't your parents

teach you not to believe everything you read?

Mr.Trampolini,How much is your job worth?$4,000.00?How much does your job contribute to the

community?How many jobs depend on your work?When you are ready to talk about accountability

look first to the sportsfishermen,who took 50,000 pounds of rockfish over their limit last year. The

12 tons taken by recent illegal use of net was barely 12% of the annual commercial quota. That

12tons was removed from this year's quota.Those men who set that net stole from honest

watermen.The 25 tons taken by sportfishermen was not taken into account for their quota this

year. Who stole fish from who?Whose licenses need to be bought out?

Marc Castelli - Chestertown, MD - Karma: Neutral

This is almost like - 2011-03-08 12:05:16

a stakeout of drug dealers, only difference is its thieving waterman being protected by some in thecommunity. no sympathy for thieves.

charles harrell - annapolis, md - Karma: Excellent

joe - 2011-03-08 10:53:10

Sounds like you should look for a new "job". Is anyone forcing you to be a waterman?

Dixon Wood - Edgewater, MD - Karma: Neutral

NPR - 2011-03-07 15:12:01

Where were those brave NRP police when the DNR mandated (with no substitution) that the

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of 5 3/26/11 12:08



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watermen must fish on December 6 last year?If anyone doesn't remember the weather conditions

that day let me refresh your memory.

We left Rock Hall at 2 in the morning and beat our way across the Bay in 20 to 30 knot winds to

get in under the western shore to set our driftnet at three in the morning. Then because the state

is so worried about unattended net we had to stay within a mile of the sets.That is the law.It

makes these men set in their boats out in the open waters and often in the shipping channels in

the dark early hours of the day.There is no poaching with anchor net.The law that is broken is

called "unattended net". That means net set and anchored so that it doesn't move in the tides with

no one watching it.This is not poaching.Poaching is tresspassing inorder to illegally hunt.All day the

wind built and shifted so that there was no escape from them. The waves rose to 4 and 5 feet with

the occaisional 6 footer rolling either onto the stern or by us. Not once did we see the ever so

hardy NRP.We had to be out in those conditions.

My second example is from the 25th of February. The winds blew up to 60 that day.Not once did

the intrepid NRP make an appearance on the water.They were waiting at the check

instations.Watermen had no choice but to work that day.

On the last day of the season Feb 28,We left Long Cove at 2 in the morning and were on site by

three to set net. Then we sat this time in the relative safety of the reach on the Chester River until

sunrise so we could legally start to haul net. Out on the Bay the winds rose up to 35 knot gusts,for

the driftnetters out there. Not once did anyone see the NRP.These brave enforcers of the state's

resource laws were warmly ensconced at the check in stations with fellow officers brought in from

all over Maryland and accompanied by biologists to insure the freshness of the catch. Their

lives,boats,crew and gear were in n

joe candel - , - Karma: Neutral

Increase the fines - 2011-03-05 15:30:07

I saw state was paying up to $4000 for commercial fishing licenses and I don't understand why.

Granted this is not AIG, but why pay them for licenses they are not using? Reduce license to two

years. Poachers, increase the fine, take their licenses. Third offense, take their boats. Increased

fines can be desingated to pay for new officers. 44% reduction in force since 1990... doesn't seem

to be in tune with current safety concerns.

harry trampolini - severna park, MD - Karma: Excellent

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searching for poachers by the light of the moon

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