A woman has been fined after taking hundreds of cockles from an Auckland beach where the gathering of shellfish is banned.
The woman admitted taking shellfish (namely cockles taken from a closed area) and obstructing a fishery officer following the incident at Eastern Beach in November last year.
There are 17 signs at the beach informing people it was closed for the gathering of shellfish.
"Eastern Beach has been closed for several years to rebuild depleted stocks. The rules are there for a reason – to protect the resource, and we’ve all got a responsibility to ensure that happens," says MPI regional manager fish compliance Western North Island Andre Espinoza.
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