November 25, 2015
Paua poaching ring busted on Motiti
Houses in Motiti Island and Tauranga have been raided by fisheries officers and police cracking down on a paua poaching ring.
The officers seized 116 kg of paua held in two freezers at a storage facility in Mount Maunganui, and also seized dive gear, computers and phones.
Brendon Mikkelsen, the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Waikato/Bay of Plenty compliance manager, says this week’s operation was the result of 12 months of investigation and analysis into black market activity.
During this time it is believed 231kg of minced paua with a commercial value of $30,000 was poached and sold, as well as at least 43 litres of kina.
The ministry alleges the paua and kina were poached from around Motiti and sold them to a network of buyers in Tauranga, Whakatane, Hamilton and Auckland.
Mr Mikkelsen says because paua and kina don’t move around much and need to be in reasonable numbers to successfully reproduce, such offending in concentrated areas may impact on the species’ ability to breed.
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