Maryland Natural Resources Police Blotter

[Crabbyd]

Maryland Natural Resources Police Blotter
Queen Anne’s County – On March 19 at 1:00 a.m., The Maryland Natural Resources Police (NRP) charged Joseph Walker Benton ,21, of Centreville, with removing oysters from an oyster sanctuary, operating a vessel without proper navigational lights, possessing oysters on a vessel more than 2 hours after sunset and two counts of catching oysters without a commercial license.

NRP officers received a tip from a waterman that a person was poaching oysters from the Sawmill oyster sanctuary located in Prospect Bay at night on March 18. Officers set up a surveillance detail on the Sawmill Sanctuary and observed a vessel not displaying navigational lights dredging for oysters. NRP identified Benton as the operator of the vessel as it docked in the Kent Narrows harbor. Officers seized five and a half bushel of oysters from the vessel and returned them to the sanctuary.

Incidentally, Benton was being investigated by NRP for a March 3 incident in which he was observed oystering and presented a oystering license to NRP which proved to be invalid.

A trial has been set for May 4 in the District Court of Maryland for Queen Anne’s County.

Kent County – On March 19, 2011 at 2:30 p.m., NRP charged Travis Lee Cannan, 20, and Benjamin Leonard Reihl, 23, both of Rockhall, with harvesting fish with a drift gill net without a commercial license and possession of undersize white perch.

The charges originated after NRP received a tip from watermen that unlicensed people were gill netting fish in the area of Skinner Landing Wharf. Officers located Cannan and Reihl at Skinner Wharf Landing taking 1,150 pounds of white perch from a gill net that had been set in Queenstown Creek. The two men had twenty undersize white perch in their possession. Reihl and Cannan both admitted to not having a commercial license.

A trial has been set for May 17 in the District Court of Maryland for Kent County.