Five men found guilty of illegal fishing despite native title claim
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Version 0 of 1. Five Aboriginal men caught with 370 greenlip abalone have been found guilty of illegal fishing despite claims they had traditional rights to take the catch. Greg Wanganeen, Edgar Wanganeen, Robin Wanganeen, Phillip Dudley and Scott O’Loughlin were stopped by fisheries officers in a dinghy at Point Pearce on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula in December 2011. Their haul was almost 15 times the legal limit of 26 for non-commercial fishing, and 188 of the abalone were considered undersized. In the Adelaide magistrates court on Thursday, magistrate Cathy Deland said she accepted they had a native title right to take abalone in the area but was not satisfied they did not intend to sell the shellfish. Related: Huge pirate tuna fishing operation exposed in Pacific, says Greenpeace Greg Wanganeen, 27, previously told the court he had fished since he was a child and any catch would often be cooked up on a barbecue and shared with the Point Pearce community, in line with their native rights. Wanganeen said the Point Pearce population would normally be about 100 but swelled dramatically over the Christmas and holiday period. Deland said: “On funeral days they could have 20 to 30 people hungry for fish at his grandmother’s house as it was a bit of a drop-in house.” “But there is no evidence before me as to how many people there actually were in the community that day.” The magistrate said when fisheries officers asked the group about their catch that day, they lied, admitting to only a “couple of strongfish and some squid”. She accepted large catches would sometimes be shared with the community but believed if that were the case a greater variety of fish would be expected. The men were found guilty of the sale, purchase or possession of a prescribed aquatic resource and will be sentenced in October. |