SEVERAL abalone poachers, in a group of seven family members and friends, were observed by Victorian Fisheries Authority officers in January last year, throwing some of the illegally collected shellfish at each other while they frolicked in the shallow waters of Berrys Beach on Phillip Island.
But so damaged were the 90 black-lip abalone, and a quantity of assorted shellfish, that were seized by fisheries officers after they chased down and apprehended the offenders, that they could not be returned to the water and needed to be disposed of.
Five members of the group; Haifu Yu, 25, Honfei Sun, 29, Miao Li, 35, Sun Yu, 29, and Dongdong Yu 35; all of them Chinese nationals, appeared in the Korumburra Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, November 26 to face a range of charges including taking a commercial quantity of abalone, failing to carry a measuring instrument, and (all but one) engaging in fishing without a valid license.
Individual members of the group also pleaded guilty to failing to comply with the directives of a fisheries officer (Sun Yu) and hindering fisheries officers (Honfei Sun).
Two others were also charged in relation to the incident but one has reportedly returned to China and the other is due to appear at a hearing in the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court on December 11, 2025.
The court heard that the group arrived at Berrys Beach at about 5.30pm on Saturday, January 13 2024, during an extremely low tide at the beach, where much of the intertidal zone was exposed.
Fisheries officer had set up a covert surveillance post at the known abalone spot specifically in response to the unusually low tide, with such opportunities favoured by poachers.
They watched for 45 minutes as the group went about collecting abalone, observing that none of the abalone taken were measured during the process, with the proceeds placed in three bags.
The group collected 90 abalone and an assortment of shellfish, 28 of them undersize, with a total weight of 21.6kg where 10kg is considered a commercial quantity.
Defence counsel for one of the men claimed the group was inexperienced in collecting abalone and were surprised how easy it was to find and gather the shellfish.
It was also submitted that it was a very unsophisticated effort with the group having no diving equipment, some wearing street clothes and even slippers, only deciding to go to the beach at the spur of the moment after an afternoon playing poker.
It was when the group got off the exposed reef at about 6.40pm and started moving back up the beach that fisheries officers swooped.
However, at the call of “stop fisheries”, several members of the group turned and ran, throwing the bags and single abalone into the bushes as they went, some making it as far as the houses in the Berrys Beach area before Fisheries officers caught up with them.
Petitioned for leniency by the three legal counsel representing the men, on the basis that their clients were relative new arrivals in Australia, unaware of the environmental protection measures around abalone stocks and also without priors of any kind, Magistrate Tony Burns agreed before they’d finished their pleas that there would be no convictions recorded against any of the men as part of the penalty.
Haifu Yu, in Australia since 2019 on a student visa, but working as a plasterer while he completes a marketing and communications course, came down specially from Queensland for the hearing, despite receiving court approval to attend by video link. Magistrate Burns appreciated the effort to attend in person, his remorse, his obvious lack of knowledge about the rules around collecting shellfish and the anxiety the incident had caused and handed down a fine of $1800 plus $416.90 costs, finding him guilty of the charges, without conviction.
The other men; Hongfei Sun, Miao Li, Sun Yu and Dongdong Sun were also found guilty without a conviction being recorded against them and were fined between $1500 and $2200, all but one receiving an order for costs.
The legal limit for taking abalone is five per person but the total number of abalone taken cannot be shared among the group unless they are actually engaged in the process of collecting the shellfish.
The abalone cannot be collected in the intertidal zone and can only be taken by diving in two metres or more of water.
The Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action advises that the level of abalone stocks (Haliotis rubra, Haliotis laevigata, Haliotis scalaris) in Victorian waters is “very poor” and the trend is “declining”. Abalone provide Victoria with one of its most valuable commercial fisheries.
Despite hits to their surveillance capability recently as a result of State Government cutbacks, Fisheries officers are highly active in known abalone collection locations and have completed significant busts in recent time.