From the Monterey Herald
From the Monterey Herald
I finally heard the whole radio spot on NPR at 7:44am. It ran for about 5 minutes.
They were intentially fishing at night to catch the sharks. The pastor said that the poaching was God's will. If you can't hear it today, you'll be able to listen to the archives starting tomorrow.
http://www.npr.org/
Best of luck,
Roy
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Fines aid leopard sharks
Poaching probes lead to restoring shrinking habitat
By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer
VERN FISHER/The Herald
United States Attorney Kevin Ryan announces $1.5 million fund to restore diminishing leopard shark habitat at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Monday. $910,000 will come from restitution received from poachers.A three-year investigation by authorities in four states and four countries over an extensive leopard shark poaching operation reaped more than $900,000 in restitution money that will be used to expand and protect the sharks' habitat.
Fines imposed on the pastor and members of a Unification Church in San Leandro will help pay for the habitat restoration, said federal officials. The Unification Church was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
The case underscores the seriousness with which federal and state authorities regard wildlife laws, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent Lisa Nichols at a news conference Monday at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The media gathering was held to announce the results of the investigation into the poaching of undersized leopard sharks in the bay for sale as exotic aquarium fish to collectors.
They may be considered "trash fish" to some, but the leopard sharks that breed in San Francisco are protected under state and federal law.
The perpetrators identified by federal authorities included the pastor and two members of the San Leandro church, the owners of aquarium supply businesses in Oakland and Alameda and a buyer and seller in Azusa.
"We commonly see an attitude of indifference to wildlife law," Nichols said. "If people don't see it enforced, they ignore it."
The investigation started as four separate probes of Internet sales of the leopard sharks, she said, and coalesced into a single investigation.
In all, Nichols said, investigators believe 10,000 to 15,000 leopard sharks were illegally collected from San Francisco Bay.
"It's difficult to get public sympathy," she said, "when the animal is not warm, fuzzy and cute," but the sharks play an important part in "the balance of a system that was set up to balance itself."
The investigation began in Miami, Nichols said, when a pet trade distributor was caught with 18 undersized leopard sharks from California and was convicted. The Chicago and Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's offices became involved and their investigations led back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where the principal suppliers are located.
Several of those charged, she said, claimed not to know what the law was. "They have an obligation to know what the laws are, and most did know."
One immediate effect of the convictions, she said, has been driving the open Internet trade in leopard sharks and other protected species underground, and some traders are now explaining the law to customers on their sites.
U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said that the $910,000 paid as restitution by the church and the criminal defendants is part of a fund that will be used for rehabilitating and restoring marine wildlife habitat in San Francisco Bay.
The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which includes the Bay Area Family Church in San Leandro that was named as one of the participants in the poaching case, has agreed to pay $500,000 for the wildlife restoration partnership as part of a nonprosecution agreement, he said, and five individuals convicted in the case will pay $410,000.
The Rev. Michael Jenkins, president of the Unification Church of America, said Monday that the Church was not aware that Thompson was engaged in an illegal activity, did not direct and does not condone such conduct, and church policy explicitly prohibits the use of its assets in such activity.
Thompson, Jenkins said, has resigned from his position as pastor.
Another $300,000 from the California Coastal Conservancy and $300,000 through the combined contributions of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation were designated for the same purpose Monday, for a total of $1.51 million.
Ryan called the dedication of the restitution funds for the shark habitat "a creative resolution" of the case.
Those convicted included Kevin Thompson, the pastor of the Bay Area Family Church; Ira Gass, 53, of Azusa; Vincent Ng, 43, of Oakland; John Newberry, 34, of Hayward; Hiroshi Ishikawa, 36, of San Leandro; and Sion Lim, 39, of San Francisco.
Thompson, Gass and Ng were each ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution; Newberry $50,000; Ishikawa $40,000; and Lim $20,000, Ryan said, and they also received jail and/or probation sentences.
The investigation included state and federal authorities, as well as investigators in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, said Don Masters, special agent-in-charge of the Southwest Region of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.
He noted that Monterey Bay Aquarium, along with Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and the Cabrillo Aquarium in San Pedro, assisted federal authorities by caring for 19 baby sharks seized by agents.
California leopard sharks were afforded extra protection by the state when a minimum size limit of 36 inches for any commercial take of the sharks was set by the state Fish and Game Code.
Habitat loss is a major threat to the sharks, said Amy Hutzel, bay program manager for the State Coastal Conservancy, who noted that 85 percent of San Francisco Bay's habitat has been lost due to development that began during the California Gold Rush.
"We now have the opportunity to double the amount of tidal marshes in the Bay" through the restoration program, she said.
The restoration, which will begin this spring, she said, will convert 40,000 acres of salt ponds to marshland for fish habitat.
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Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or
khowe@montereyherald.com.
Thousands is on the low end in the bigger picture of marine ornamentals. 
