Nets take grim toll on native animals
11 May 2016
A 22 year-old Paynesville man has been found guilty of 25 charges relating to fishing operations that killed 250 eastern long-neck turtles and other native animals.
The man pleaded guilty to charges including using an unregistered boat to take fish for sale, failing to comply with conditions of his commercial eel access license, making a false statement, operating where he was not licensed to do so and destroying protected wildlife.
The offences occurred between December 2014 and February 2015.
The prosecutor, Fisheries Officer Matt Bateson, told the court a condition of the license the man was operating on, at the time of the offences, was that nets must be cleared once every 48 hours.
Some of the nets were not checked for two weeks by which time they were full of dead, decomposing fish, eels, eastern long neck turtles, a native water rat as well as some live fish.
The man was given a Community Correction Order for 24 months, required to perform 250 hours of supervised unpaid community work and to undergo a mental health assessment and treatment program and had all his seized property forfeited, including a number of fyke nets.
He has also been removed as an operator for the Eel Access Licence and is no longer authorised to fish commercially.
Prosecutor Bateson had informed the court at a previous hearing for the matter that the man's actions showed a total disregard for the unacceptable impact of his commercial eel fishing operations by fishing waters other than those specified on the license.
Prosecutor Bateson told the court the man ignored the requirement regarding net clearing within 48hours and, as a direct result of this neglect, he had destroyed significant numbers of protected wildlife, eels and unwanted fin fish.
Magistrate Walsh said submitting false and misleading information in his catch and effort returns jeopardised the integrity of the catch and effort data used to manage the fishery.
He said the man's actions threatened the entire commercial eel fishery and were well below community expectations of how a sustainable fishery should be operating.