TYPICALLY, you’ll get a fine or a good-behaviour bond if you’re caught taking too many abalone.

Occasionally, in cases of repeat or serious offending, you might get a term of imprisonment.

But a family from Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne, who took more than the legal limit of five abalone, while collecting 32 black-lip abalone in the intertidal zone at Cape Liptrap Coastal Park in April last year, almost got the death penalty.

As revealed at the Wonthaggi Magistrate’s Court on Friday, November 7, during the viewing of body-worn camera footage taken by fisheries officers, as well as collecting 32 abalone, the family of five also gathered a number of edible sea snails, enjoyed in various cuisines around the world, and one potentially deadly cone-snail shell.

“You’ve also got a cone-shell here as well,” said Fisheries Officer Stephanie Chessum in a field interview with the accused.

“A cone shell can sting you anywhere. You could have died,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“We also have Blue-ringed octopuses in this area,” she said later.

Cone snails, which live in stunningly patterned shells, have a toxin that can paralyse or kill a human within one to five hours if untreated. It takes only milliseconds to seconds for the snail to take down its prey.

And in an isolated area like Cape Liptrap, such a sting could indeed be deadly.

The gastropod molluscs have a harpoon-like tooth that allows it to rapidly sting prey or stab predators and quickly flee from danger.

Having avoided the worst possible outcome of their allegedly illegal fishing expedition on Sunday morning, April 13 last year, one of the two divers in the group facing a range of charges, will have to wait until January 30 next year to hear his fate, unlikely to be a fate worse than death.

The fishing party included a father and son, who shared the diving duties, both in camouflaged wetsuits, green camo for the father and red for the son, the boy’s mother and two others, a male and a female, who did little more than come along to watch, or at the most, carry one of two backpacks back to the carpark, to their waiting black Mercedes SUV.

The sticking point for Fisheries prosecutor, Pranaven Pathmaraj, is the claim made by the family that the 17-year-old boy did most of the abalone gathering, accepting responsibility for 27 of the 32 shellfish, including all three of the undersized abalone, while his father collected five, the legal limit.

But as Mr Pathmaraj explained to the court on Friday, November 7, 2025, the Fisheries’ case is covered by what the Act defines as in possession.

“We say he would meet those definitions or that he was complicit, assisted, directed or encouraged the commission of the offence,” Mr Pathmaraj said.

Magistrate Cecily Hollingworth called on the prosecution to provide a written submission by January 26, 2026 outlining their claim that the accused “wasn’t taking x amount, but that he meets the definition of being in possession” made out by the Act.

The son has already had his case dealt with in children’s court, where he reportedly received a good-behaviour bond.

Fisheries Officer Stephanie Chessum said it was a mistake many people made thinking they could share their catch, either fishing or collecting abalone and other seafood restricted by a bag limit, with family members or others who came along for the ride.

“It applies to all species, the bag limit is tied to the person actually involved in the diving or fishing,” she said.

“You can’t just hand the catch off to someone else and share the limit.”

The bag limit for black-lip abalone is five per diver, putting the family catch at three-times the limit, a serious offence if it can be proved that the father was responsible for at least half of the abalone taken.

The father and son divers also took their abalone in shallow water off the rocks at Cape Liptrap.

Having interviewed the divers in the Cape Liptrap Carpark, where Fisheries officers had been conducting covert observation of the family group, they were allowed to leave with 10 full-sized abalone, the remaining 22 abalone, including three undersized, were returned alive to the water at nearby Walkerville North.

The family was allowed to leave with their extensive cache of diving equipment including several sets of wetsuits, masks, snorkels and flippers.

The operation by Fisheries officers from Yarram again underscores the valuable role played by VFA officers in combating poaching, especially of threatened species in marine national and state parks.

Recently retired senior fisheries officer for north-east Victoria, Greg Sharp, said the known lack of compliance officers, brought about by State Government cutbacks, had emboldened illegal behaviour.

“It's no surprise. With the VFA cutting their staff numbers, it's inevitable that poaching will increase, and this is just a sign of it," he said, of an incident in the north of the state.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. Crayfish have always had a really poor compliance rate and, with fewer staff, it's going to be worse.”

The case returns to court in Wonthaggi on January 30, 2026.