Lane's group is not anti-environmental. It believes in saving the island's resources through good management. The group does not support people who poach for money. But they don't support coming down hard on local people as they try to go about their traditional work.

"The atmosphere here has become poisoned. Nobody wants to talk to anyone anymore about what they are doing, because what they are doing is often against the law," Lane says. "We have to try to get away with it. We have to watch out for the police. It puts shivers through you... men out at night so they can jig a few cod."

Ernie Collins worked for DFO in Newfoundland until 1995. Collins was brought up in an outport. He knows local people believe rural activities like cod jigging are a "God-given right." Collins has sympathy for people who are caught and charged for jigging cod and other offenses. But he defends the need to crack down on local people who break the rules. "When you have a major problem with the conservation of resources, you just cannot carry on with traditions," Mr. Collins says. "Traditions will sometimes have to be changed or, indeed, ended."

This leads to an important question. What happens if the laws change but people's needs and habits do not? What does this mean for the people who live and work in rural Newfoundland?

The Turkey Lady

I admit it. I keep turkeys. I built their pen behind the shed. Several plum trees hide the pen on one side. A stack of wood hides it on the other. I piled the junks seven feet high. You'd have to stand on my front step to see those turkeys now. They are nicely hidden from the few cars that pass on the road. The dog catcher won't see them, nor will anyone else who might want to turn me in.

I'm not the only one in this little village who keeps illegal farm animals. Mike on the hill has a shed full of gobblers. Mrs. Pinsent keeps her chickens to herself. Ed got several pheasants this year. Next year he plans to sneak in a pig.

The town passed a law outlawing farm animals here in the 1980s. They passed the law about the same time they burned down all the outhouses and put water and sewer services in. They re-zoned the cove from a rural to a residential area. You can't have farm animals in a residential area. Animals smell. They bring the property values down. One day farm animals were a regular part of life, the next they were against the law. Just like that.

Mrs. Burns' chickens were the first to go. She was given 24 hours to get rid of them. Her laying hens, her prize roosters—everything gone in a night. Her husband had to kill them. She stood looking out the window while he did it. There were tears in her eyes. Mrs. Burns froze some of her chickens. She gave the rest away.