Seized in La Gomera a mere 25 kilos from poaching - La Provincia
Last Friday, February 7, in a joint action of the Fisheries Inspection Service of the General Directorate of Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government and the Nature Protection Service (SEPRONA) of the Civil Guard, a mere 25 kilograms was seized that lacked the corresponding documentation proving its legal provenance, being also a copy to which the corresponding one had not been submitted previous ciguatera control before marketing.
The specimen was obtained after an inspection of a restoration establishment in San Sebastian de La Gomera. The agents proceeded to take a record for the infractions committed and to confiscate the specimen, withdrawing it from the commercialization and subsequently depositing it in the Fishermen's Association of Valle Gran Rey, where the ciguatera test protocol was practiced, waiting for the results. With this action, a serious danger to public health.
Remember that in 2013, there was an intoxication of 14 people in Lanzarote by the intake of a grouper who had not passed the previous controls of absence of ciguatoxin. For such poisoning, they were sentenced respectively for a crime against public health, three and a half years and two years and nine months in jail, the owner of the fish market and an employee. Those affected had to be treated urgently, suffering from diarrhea, cramping, toothache, itching, among other symptoms, and even, some of them needing a three-month medical treatment and leaving most sequelae in the form of paresthesias.
From the General Directorate of Fisheries, it is recalled that all fishery products that are marketed must pass through the points of first sale that are the only ones that guarantee the appropriate sanitary controls, which include mandatory control for certain species of the absence of ciguatoxin before its commercialization, as is the case with grouper. We also encourage customers to ask the restaurants for the first sale label of the products they will consume.
