Dozens of shellfish and paua sprawled out on tarpaulin. Hundreds of crayfish lined up neatly alongside fish. It sounds like a rustic fish market, but it’s not. Instead, it’s illegally gathered seafood seized by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

You may have seen images like this on the Ministry’s Facebook page or read reports of MPI Fishery officers seizing goods off people caught breaking our fisheries laws and regulations.

Following four very recent interventions, Fisheries officers were able to put almost 3,000 cockles and 156 undersized paua back into the sea after several groups of people were caught with the hauls, claiming to be unaware of a beach closure and regional and quantity limits on shellfish gathering.

While smaller-scale offences are often dealt with through education, bigger offences often lead to infringements and prosecutions. Consequently, the illegally harvested seafood becomes evidence for any subsequent proceedings such as court cases.

“Of course, the court does not appreciate us showing up with a bag of wet, smelly, mouldy two-month-old paua, so the next best thing for our officers to do is to lay out any kaimoana as quickly as possible, take photos to show the court, then put everything back in the ocean if it has a high chance of surviving. Usually, shellfish and rock lobster will recover if the time out of the water is kept to a minimum,” says Steve Ham, National Manager of Fisheries Compliance at MPI.

The individual caught with these paua was infringed for both excess and undersized paua, which were returned to the sea once the evidence was documented.

“If the kaimoana is dead or damaged, we can’t just throw it back in, as it could wash up on the shoreline, so we will take it back to our offices where it is measured, weighed, tagged and photographed.

“It’s then frozen and kept till the court case is over.”

So, what happens then to the seafood MPI confiscates? Where does it all go?

A question that inevitably comes up is why MPI doesn’t donate the seized kaimoana to charity or people in need.

“Sadly, it is just too dangerous to redistribute it or give it away – no matter how nice of an idea it seems.

Because of its unknown history, a haul like this intercepted by fisheries officers cannot be distributed to the community for health reasons.

“We have no idea how it’s been caught, how long it’s been in the sun, and whether it’s been collected or stored in a clean and hygienic way. Seafood that has not been handled correctly could pose a significant health risk.

“We could make people really sick, so that’s why we can’t donate it,” Mr Ham says. 

“We have freezers at our fisheries offices around the country, so every so often we take the confiscated fish and seafood and return it back into the marine ecosystem. This enables this illegally harvested seafood to enter the food chain in a controlled manner.” 

Illegal hauls, despite being frozen, will be sometimes returned into the ecosystem in a controlled manner.

This means it is well documented where the illegally harvested seafood has been released and how much was put back into the sea, and as a result we don’t overwhelm the ecosystem.

There are minimum size and daily catch limits for all fish and shellfish, including cockles, kina, paua, green-lipped mussels, oysters, pipi, scallops, toheroa and tuatua.

There are also regionally specific limits, closures and area restrictions in New Zealand, which are outlined on the MPI website. There is also the NZ Fishing Rules app.