$8000 fines for cockle poachers
Fines totalling $8000 have been imposed and two cars have been seized for what may be New Zealand’s biggest haul of illegally taken cockles.
The 10,548 cockles were seized from four people at the Saltwater Creek lagoon in North Canterbury by fisheries officers on April 20.
The officers returned all the shellfish to the lagoon and Ministry for Primary Industries prosecutor Grant Fletcher said it was believed that most of them would have survived.
Cockles live in tidal areas and can spend some time out of the water without harm, the Christchurch District Court was told at the sentencing for the four offenders, who had admitted charges of illegally possessing more than three times the daily limit.
The daily limit for cockles is 150 per person. Several other people were with the family group on the day but only took a few cockles. Judge Tony Couch assessed that the four who were prosecuted had taken about 16 times the legal limit.
The four were Xihou Lu, 45, a shop owner and cook, Xue Jin Mao, 53, a vegetable gardener, Wen Cai Mao, 22, a student, and Baoyi Mao, 24, a personal assistant. The MPI eventually dropped the charge against a fifth person who was originally prosecuted.
The court accepted that the group had not been aware of the daily limit, and that the cockles had not been intended for sale.
Defence counsel Craig Ruane said the four had been in New Zealand for between 12 and 18 years. The shellfish were gathered for an upcoming large family gathering. One of the group had checked on a Chinese-New Zealand website before the trip about a good place to gather the shellfish.
Mr Ruane said the four now wished to run seminars through their church and other community groups, and to place articles in the foreign language media, to educate others about the information about fishing limits.
Judge Couch imposed fines of $2000 on each of the four, plus court and solicitor costs of $243 for each of them. He ordered forfeiture of cars with a total value of about $40,000 belonging to two of them.
The cars were being used to cart away nine sacks of the cockles at the time the fisheries officers stopped them.
The two owners now have to make applications for relief to try to convince the courts not to go ahead with the forfeitures because of the value of the property involved and the hardship that would be involved in losing it.
Judge Couch noted the prosecution’s view that it may be the largest seizure of illegally taken cockles in New Zealand.
Category: Focus
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