A man caught in possession of toheroa at a Northland beach faces a fine of up to $20,000 or a community-based sentence.

Richard Aden Edwards, 52, was in his ute on Ripiro Beach at Dargaville when he was spotted by local fisheries officer Darren Searle during a routine afternoon patrol.

Asked by Searle if he had been fishing, Edwards said he had gathered toheroa for “a feed” for his family.

He pointed to a bucket in the back of his ute and was upfront about his identity and other details.

There were 63 toheroa in the bucket, which Searle photographed for evidence and then returned to the beach.

During the 1900s toheroa was a favourite NZ seafood delicacy with a global reputation, delivered to the mouths of foreigners through canned meat and soups.

But extensive over-harvesting led to the near-extinction of the species, resulting in the introduction of a total ban on gathering in 1982.

The species is still recovering.

Under the Fisheries (Amateur) Fishing Regulations 2013, it is an offence to take any toheroa or disturb the areas they inhabit.

The shellfish can only be taken by people with a customary permit.

Defences to a proven charge of unlawfully possessing toheroa include the actions of default of another person, accidental possession, or some other cause beyond a defendant’s control that he or she took all reasonable precautions and due diligence to avoid.

By taking more than 50, Edwards was charged with a more serious breach of the regulation.

He offered no defence to the charge and did not attend a hearing in Dargaville District Court on June 2 this year. The charge was formally proved from the evidence produced by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

An MPI prosecutor told Judge Taryn Bayley that Edwards was believed to have left New Zealand for Australia in March this year.

The judge asked MPI to provide submissions on the level of the sentence to be imposed ahead of the case being called again later this year.

Information about seafood regulations is accessible online at the MPI’s website, which cautions people not to confuse toheroa with a similar species, tuatua.

In Northland, people can gather up to 150 tuatua per person daily as per Regulation 12, Fisheries (Amateur Fishing) Regulations 2013. But exceeding that can result in a fine of up to $20,000 depending on the amount taken.

According to the MPI website, toheroa shells are more brittle and slightly rounder than tuatua. Toheroa also have a slight lump at the base. Tuatua shells are slightly glossy compared to toheroa and have a square, flat base.

A simple test is to sit the shellfish on its base on the sand, with the sharp end standing up. A tuatua should stay standing, balanced on the flat base, while the toheroa – which has a lump on the base of the shell – should fall over.

The two species can be the same size and colour depending on age but toheroa will eventually grow twice as big as tuatua and have a darker shell. Tuatua are normally found in the low, intertidal area whereas toheroa usually occupy an area 20 metres below the high-water mark and are deeper in the sand, MPI says.

MPI was unable to put Open Justice in touch with a local fishery officer in Dargaville to discuss the issue of poaching.

A fisheries officer in Kaitaia, Chris Spiers, told Open Justice that non-compliance with toheroa regulations was more of an issue around Dargaville than in the Far North, where stocks of the shellfish were still only just beginning to recover, having been wiped out in the past.

However, he noted that as the toheroa was beginning to come back in the Far North, so too were offenders trying to take them.

He said that in addition to Government legislation forbidding the taking of toheroa, local iwi had also imposed rāhui (prohibitions on gathering) at Far North areas where the shellfish were known to be.