I can't speak for the department, but from the perspective of our members, it's that the enforcement activities taking place on the marketplace side of the problem were revealing the magnitude of the fishery. It's very hard for the department, on one hand, to say that an illegal fishery is not taking place and, on the other hand, to make seizures of hundreds of thousands of pounds of lobsters in Nova Scotia.
On December 5th, 2023. See this statement in context.