{"id":219094,"date":"2026-01-06T05:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/219094\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T05:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:23:10","slug":"trail-of-dead-fish-found-off-great-barrier-island-hauraki-gulf-fisheries-nz-investigates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/219094\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail of dead fish found off Great Barrier Island, Hauraki Gulf; Fisheries NZ investigates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another person on the boat picks a baby snapper out of the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re too small, so they\u2019re left to die,\u201d Shields said.<\/p>\n

At the start of the video, he drew attention to a fishing trawler across the water from his boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m guessing it\u2019s come from that trawler over there,\u201d Shields said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is atrocious.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told the Herald the trail of fish was farther than he could film.<\/p>\n

\"UndersizedUndersized snapper were among the line of dead fish spotted in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. Photo \/ Darren Shields<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel really sad because I\u2019ve had a great time in the ocean, but I fear for my children and grandchildren about what they\u2019re going to do or see in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisheries New Zealand\u2019s regional manager Andre Espinoza said it was investigating a complaint and determining whether an offence had occurred. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have identified a fishing vessel operating in the area and are making further inquiries, including a review of its on-board camera footage, catch reporting and GPS vessel tracking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal discarding of fish from commercial vessels is relatively rare because of the prevalence of on-board cameras on many vessels and because we are able to track the movements of vessels in near real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinoza said Fisheries NZ recently prosecuted a Napier commercial fisher for a range of fisheries offences, including discarding fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the Fisheries Act section 191(6)<\/a> unlawfully disposing of fish could result in a maximum fine of $250,000 or up to five years imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another person on the boat picks a baby snapper out of the water. \u201cThey\u2019re too small, so they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,3952,20497,690,14647,8321,54249,19630,1874,16773,30699,51628,17706,17709,2514,3180,111,43,139,69,1118,6662,63739,4129,80],"class_list":["post-219094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-aucklands","tag-barrier","tag-dead","tag-discovered","tag-fish","tag-fisheries","tag-fisherman","tag-found","tag-great","tag-gulf","tag-hauraki","tag-investigates","tag-investigating","tag-island","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-off","tag-spear","tag-trail","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}