Four WA fishers have been slugged a combined $5532 in fines after being caught taking an illegal haul of sea urchins and netting in protected waters.<\/p>\n
Two Mandurah men were hit with fines of more than $1500 each after taking almost four times the legal limit of sea urchins from an inter-tidal reef near the Port Denison Marina.<\/p>\n
A 61-year-old Silver Sands man was fined $1604 in Geraldton Magistrates Court for taking 78 sea urchins in October last year \u2014 58 over the daily bag limit.<\/p>\n
A 52-year-old Falcon man, who was with him, was fined $1504 after taking 73 sea urchins, exceeding the legal limit by 53.<\/p>\n
The daily bag limit for sea urchins in WA is 20 per person.<\/p>\n
In a separate prosecution, two Geraldton men were fined a combined $2424 after they were caught illegally netting in the closed waters of the Greenough River.<\/p>\n
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development fisheries officers spotted the pair using a 50m haul net to catch six sea mullet, one yelloweye mullet and an undersized black bream in December.<\/p>\n
The Greenough River is closed to all net fishing.<\/p>\n
When officers moved in, the pair tried to hide the net in nearby bushland.<\/p>\n
Officers also found an undersized mulloway that had been caught on a fishing rod the previous night.<\/p>\n
A 33-year-old Geraldton man was fined $1634 after being convicted of giving a false name, netting in closed waters, taking an undersized black bream and possessing an undersized mulloway.<\/p>\n
A 39-year-old Geraldton man was fined $790 for his offences.<\/p>\n
DPIRD Regional Compliance Midwest Director Mick Kelly said fishers should be aware of the fishing rules for various species before fishing.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking more than a bag limit allows, taking undersize fish or using a net illegally could threaten the sustainability of our fisheries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four WA fishers have been slugged a combined $5532 in fines after being caught taking an illegal haul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,23800,48,6349,1625,44,45],"class_list":["post-752480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-courts-justice","tag-crime","tag-fishing","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}