In a New Zealand first, the Ministry of Fisheries has reported that forensic paint sampling had been used to identify the location of a vessel where fish was illegally dumped.
Tauranga commercial fisher Ross Ian Harvey pleaded guilty to a charge of being a party to the dumping of snapper by West Coast Fishing Limited and was fined NZ$27,000, believed to be one of the largest fines for this type of offending.
The incident occurred on the 6 August 2009 when Mr Harvey was skipper of the commercial Danish Seine fishing vessel Garraway.
A local recreational fisher came across an estimated 1,000 snapper floating about 4km north of the Ohiwa Harbour entrance in the eastern Bay of Plenty. The fisher provided a GPS position and estimated that there was an area of approximately 4,000m2 with snapper floating in it.
On arrival at the scene, Opotiki Fishery Officers collected samples of snapper still floating. All were found to be well over the minimum commercial size limit of 25cm.
Tom Teneti, Field Operations Manager for Poverty Bay, said dumping of legal size quota species is prohibited under the Fisheries Act 1996 because all legal size quota species must be landed and counted against the fisher’s annual catch entitlement (ACE).
“The Fishery Officers found blue paint embedded under the scales of two of the snapper,” Mr Teneti said. “The paint was scientifically tested by the University of Otago Chemistry Isotrace unit. This contributed to identification of the source of the dumped snapper - the Garraway.”
Electronic evidence obtained from the vessel was also used in the investigation to identify the vessel as being in the vicinity at the time the fish were dumped.
“A process of elimination was applied to make sure no other vessel could have been involved in the vicinity of the detected dumping,” Mr Teneti said.
