BY ANDY WALGAMOTT, NORTHWEST SPORTSMAN MAGAZINE
Washington game wardens are cracking down on illegal shark fishing and making an example of one content creator.
WDFW Police report they’ve sent Pierce County prosecutors nine counts of misdemeanor unlawful recreational fishing and one gross misdemeanor count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant after observing a man and his buddies allegedly pull a six-gill shark out of the water for trophy photos.
“Puget Sound acts as a nursery for the young sharks before they journey into the oceans and eventually return to Puget Sound to repeat the cycle. This is one of the primary reasons why it is unlawful to target these sharks locally, as the anglers fishing for these creatures are targeting them during a highly volatile era in the animals’ lives,” officers stated in a Facebook post this morning.
The charges stem from a months-long investigation and nearly a dozen complaints about the suspect targeting both six- and seven-gill sharks and posting catches to social media channels.
In a 41-second reel, WDFW Police included snippets of two videos submitted as evidence to prosecutors and that line up exactly with content loaded three years ago and more recently to the YouTube channel Ginger Snake man.
The content loaded three years ago also appears on a separate YouTube channel.
Both channels show multiple other videos of sharks being caught from the bank, handled and released. Some are labeled as occurring in Puget Sound; backdrops in unlabeled videos also match the region. In the description of one, the other YouTube channel claims that soupfin sharks are being targeted but sevengills are hard to keep off the line.
The concern for state fish managers is that by posting such content, it makes it seem OK and encourages others to target the off-limits species.
Except for people with scientific collection permits, all fishing for six- and seven-gill sharks as well as thresher sharks has been closed in Washington waters since 2013. Before that, sixgill shark fishing had been limited to catch-and-release by an August 2000 rule change following word that two anglers had caught at least two sixgills out of Puget Sound.
The Washington fishing regulations pamphlet states, “Shark closure – Closed to fishing for, retention, or possession of sixgill, sevengill, and thresher sharks. Sixgill shark may not be removed from the water.”
Despite those regulations, wardens report they “are seeing a growing number of online posts showing these sharks targeted and then unlawfully removed from or partially removed from the water.”
To head off increased attention on the fish, they set up surveillance on a South Sound pier to catch the main suspect in the act. Several hours later, an officer watched as the man and his friends dragged “a six-gill out of the water for a trophy photo before being released.”
In the edited video posted by WDFW Police, an officer confronts the suspect and alleges, “You know your shark rules. You can’t full or partially remove sixgill from the water … When you wrestle a sixgill to shore like that, you hop on its back, you expose its gills to the air … You know as well as anybody else does that Puget Sound is a nursery for those sharks. There has been direct correlation to catching shark in this stage of their lives and mortality of the pups inside the moms. Once they exhaust themselves being fought to shore, then all of their babies die.”
In response to a request for comment on the allegations, Connor Siefert, who owns the Ginger Snake man YouTube channel, stated, “Yes I dispute them, no further comments at this time.”
The bust comes just ahead of “Shark Week,” the Discovery Channel’s annual focus on shark conservation.
Six- and seven-gills are state-listed as Species of Greatest Conservation Need under WDFW’s State Wildlife Action Plan.
Per WDFW Police, the misdemeanor charges each carry penalties of as much as a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail, while the gross misdemeanor could mean a fine of up to $5,000 and a year in jail.
Here’s hoping that Pierce County prosecutors take up the case.
