Member for Rockhampton, Barry O\u2019Rourke, said the court\u2019s penalty sent a message to all fishers that the illegal take of Queensland fisheries resources will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy blatantly disregarding Queensland\u2019s fisheries laws and taking protected species, these fishers have threatened the sustainability of fish stocks and the future viability of their industry,\u201d Mr O\u2019Rourke said.<\/p>\n
Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol officers inspected a commercial fishing vessel at the Port Alma boat ramp in November 2018 finding three bins containing live mud crabs, including 51 protected female mud crabs and four male mud crabs.<\/p>\n
Two commercial fishers pleaded guilty to charges under the Fisheries Act on 29 October 2019. The magistrate imposed a fine of AUS$14,000 and recorded a conviction against a 29 year-old man who had a history of previous fisheries offences whilst an AUS$12,000 fine was given to a 49 year-old man.<\/p>\n
Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries, Mark Furner, said both offenders were licensed commercial fishers who have been fishing in the area for more than a decade and they should have known better. \u201cWe make no apologies for being tough on illegal fishing. This is what it takes to build a legacy of a sustainable fishery for our children and grandchildren,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two central Queensland commercial fishers caught with illegal mud crabs have been fined a total of AUS$26,000 in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3076,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions\/3076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3074"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}