Fishery officers stopped the man at Castor Bay and seized his vessel and fishing gear. Video / Chris Jellie
An Auckland boatie who filmed and spoke out against illegal fishing has been threatened with violence – but he remains determined to expose offenders endangering the ocean.
It comes after fisheries officers, acting on information from the public, caught a man with about 200 undersized pāua at Castor Bay onAuckland’s North Shore last week.
Fisheries New Zealand confirmed to the Herald that “the man will be facing charges under the Fisheries Act that carry penalties of up to five years imprisonment or up to $250,000 in fines”.
“He will likely be summonsed to court within the next month.”
Chris Jellie, a licensed skipper and recreational fisherman, happened upon the scene and filmed the incident.
The video, which has since garnered hundreds of thousands of views, showed a large number of pāua being sorted and inspected by an officer – something Jellie later described to the Herald as “frustrating and sad”.
He says the response to his video has been “overwhelmingly positive” and is a “very hot topic”, especially among Aucklanders, but he has also received threats, with one calling him a “nark” and claiming “posting up s*** like that will get you hurt”.
Despite the threats, Jellie says he’s not backing down and will continue to expose people who put Auckland’s waters at risk.
“The threats I get are probably mainly from keyboard warriors. Some of them seem to have gang ties, which I kind of suspect could be linked back to the offender. If you take away their power, they tend to get fairly upset.”
A man was caught with 200 undersized pāua in Castor Bay, North Shore, last week.
Jellie, who has also spent time working on the Hauraki Gulf, said he saw “a lot of offending on the water” and is calling for harsher penalties.
“Perhaps the penalty we have for this type of offending is not good enough. If we’re going to look at creating marine reserves that we all can’t fish in and rules for commercial charter fisher operators in the Hauraki Gulf and things like this, then we have to be serious about it and make the penalties for these repeat offenders so severe that they really don’t want to do it again.”
Fisheries NZ confirmed the offender was “known to fishery officers”.
Jellie says “the gloves are now off” and he’s determined to expose offenders.
