If you're snacking on a bowl of conch ceviche right now - you have all rights to; after all, the season opened up yesterday. But the day before was strictly no go for conch - and tonight 8 Fishermen from the north are paying dearly for it. First to court was the Tun family of Chunox village. They were aboard a vessel named Sianely on the Turneffe Atoll when they were caught with 792 conch. That happened on September 30th and today in court they all pleaded guilty. For their guilty plea, each fishermen were all fined $500 each for the offenses plus $20.00 for each conch found in their possession. That brought the total to $17,850.00 dollars.
While that sounds like a lot, it could have been far more because these four are not first time offenders; they were before the court for the same offence earlier this year.
The second group of men to be arraigned before Magistrate Rogers for out of season conch were a foursome from Sarteneja village. They had only 151 conch - and a paid a total of five thousand dollars in fines.
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