There’s a problem with people poaching shellfish. The Spanish (or maybe Galician) word for poacher is furtivo – which I think is a great word!
I was reading about the furtivos before Christmas as it’s a big problem around that time. They go to the small beaches and coves and they take the shellfish in an uncontrolled way – and they take everything, whereas they are supposed to take only ones of a certain size so the supply is sustainable. When they do get caught, often up to 80% of what they take is too small.
The police and also people from the fishing associations try to catch the furtivos, but apparently they hide their haul. Then wearing a wetsuit or waders they swim/wade around a couple of coves and pop up somewhere completely different and if the police stop them they say they were out for a swim or something and it can’t be proved otherwise.
They then later drive to where they hid their haul of shellfish.
When we were at Rueta ‘our’ beach, I saw a man come round the rocks on the left, right at the tip of the land behind the bridge. I was where I was when I took the pic above, but he came around these rocks:
He was wearing waders and was very very wet. I first thought he’d fallen off a boat – but his extremely furtive behaviour made me think we were looking at a furtivo. His behaviour and clothes was exactly what I’d read about. I guess he’d come from one of the small coves round the corner.
He passed us and then headed into the woods, I guess up towards the road.
Daisy enjoyed her run on the beach regardless of furtive furtivos 🙂