{"id":468534,"date":"2026-06-09T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/468534\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:00:13","slug":"pilots-fined-400-each-after-biosecurity-dog-sophie-finds-food-in-luggage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/468534\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilots fined $400 each after biosecurity dog Sophie finds food in luggage"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the same month, Sophie also sniffed out fresh betel nuts and banana leaves in a passenger\u2019s pocket, earning the traveller a $400 fine.<\/p>\n

MPI said Sophie had been \u201crewarded\u201d for her hard work.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep up the fantastic job, Sophie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travellers have been reminded to declare any food, plant material or animal products or face an instant $400 infringement fee.<\/p>\n

These include salt, oils, syrups, and even human breast milk, all of which are allowed into New Zealand provided they don\u2019t contain biosecurity risk materials.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe bat head was declared by an incoming visitor. <\/p>\n

In 2018, a deceased bat\u2019s head<\/a> was declared by a traveller from Apia who had wanted to show the remains to relatives. <\/p>\n

Biosecurity NZ North passenger manager Craig Hughes said the incident was a \u201cbiosecurity nightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see some strange things carried by passengers in this job and this one is definitely up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mummified bat was described as being in a poor condition when it arrived in Aotearoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cBats have a terrible reputation as disease carriers and the remains could have harboured hitchhiker pests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biosecurity officers stopped someone carrying fruit fly-infested chillies<\/a> at the border in 2015, a costly mistake for the French passenger.<\/p>\n

A tiger tooth, dried frogs, and a range of fresh produce were among the other 6700 items intercepted that year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the same month, Sophie also sniffed out fresh betel nuts and banana leaves in a passenger\u2019s pocket,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31987,74,13432,6131,18057,9219,24392,9881,6130,11424,6204,19631,564,96183,33525,78,19474,4271,111,43,139,69,81,34146,36167,412,165,1529],"class_list":["post-468534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-31987","tag-after","tag-biosecurity","tag-declare","tag-detector","tag-dog","tag-each","tag-facing","tag-failing","tag-finds","tag-fine","tag-fined","tag-food","tag-forgotten","tag-hefty","tag-in","tag-items","tag-luggage","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pilots","tag-snacks","tag-sniffed","tag-sophie","tag-their","tag-three"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468534","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=468534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}