Attempts to avoid fisheries officers were unsuccessful and an Australian man was charged with exceeding the bag limit for snapper in Melbourne in December last year.

Athanasios Lazaris appeared before Magistrate Jack Vandersteen at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday April 19.

The court heard 30-year-old Mr Lazaris and an unknown male, unloaded a large blue cooler containing fish in an effort to avoid being inspected by fisheries officers. The cooler contained 16 snapper with 14 more than 40 centimetres long.

Prosecutor Sofia Jankovic said the bag limit is set at three fish over 40cm per person per day to protect the breeding stock that comes into Port Phillip every year to spawn. She said that over fishing puts the survival of the species at risk.

Magistrate Vandersteen said these fish should not have been caught in the first place. He said that taking snapper over 40cm presents a threat to their breeding cycles.

He set Mr Lazaris a good behaviour period of six months without conviction and ordered him to pay US$278 to the Royal Children’s Hospital.