Paua haul over the limit
She took no more than the daily catch, but a Nelson woman has been fined after she was caught with more than the ‘‘accumulation limit’’ of paua while travelling to Vietnam.
Thi My Hien Tran, 35, and three others collected 20 paua each over two days in December 2018, but when Tran packed 65 of them to take with her to family in Hanoi, the package was intercepted at Christchurch International Airport on Christmas Eve last year.
The box, which had arrived from Nelson, contained 65 paua, 20 of which were under the minimum legal size of 125 millimetres.
Tran was fined in the Nelson District Court on Wednesday for possessing more than the accumulation limit of paua and possessing paua less than the minimum length.
Ministry for Primary Industries lawyer Julie Wotton said the maximum number of paua that could be taken or possessed by a person on any given day was 10, although a person could accumulate up to 20, as long as the shellfish were not taken in breach of the regulations.
In 2009, the Government set an accumulation limit of 20 paua, twice the daily bag limit at the time, in a bid to restrict poaching and black market activity. It meant the accumulation defence, claiming that large numbers of paua were the result of previous days’ fishing, could no longer be used.
Tran was interviewed when she returned to Nelson in January 2019, and said the paua were for her family in Vietnam to eat. She had collected them with three other people over two days in December.
Each member of the group had only taken their limit, 10 paua per person, per day. Between them, they had gathered 80 paua. Fifteen were eaten, and 65 were packaged for travel.
Under the Fisheries Act, it is an offence for individuals to export more than 20 paua unless it has been commercially purchased or caught under a customary permit.
Tran said she had seen a sign showing the bag limit and legal size, but lost her ruler used to measure the paua on the first day, and no-one else with her had a measuring device.
Wotton said there was no suggestion that Tran intended to sell the paua or make a commercial profit.
Duty lawyer Luke Acland said the charge of accumulation was a ‘‘peculiar quirk’’ that not many people knew about. The fact that Tran had packaged the paua to take overseas was what alerted fisheries and immigration to the matter.
On the charge of possessing more than the accumulation limit, Judge David Ruth fined Tran $450 and ordered the forfeiture of the paua. On the charge of possessing undersized paua, she was fined $250.