Australia Nets Slippery Passenger

[JT]

Australia Nets Slippery Passenger
There was something decidedly fishy about one female passenger arriving at Melbourne International Airport.

Customs officers found 51 live tropical fish hidden under her skirt.

While examining the 43-year-old woman's bags on Friday, officials reportedly heard "flipping noises from the vicinity of her waist".

"An examination revealed 15 plastic water-filled bags holding fish," the Australian Customs Service said in a statement.

The fish were allegedly concealed inside a purpose-built apron.

Experts have yet to establish the exact species of the fish, but if the woman had successfully brought them into Australia, they could have posed potentially serious quarantine, environmental and health risks, customs officials said.

The woman could face up to 10 years in jail and an $80,000 fine if convicted of smuggling wildlife.

The fish were concealed in a special apron.

 

[clarionreef]

"Experts" have yet to establish the exact species of the fish, :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
"So why were they called 'experts?"
Especially if they can't tell a pleco from a Formosan arowana?
but if the woman had successfully brought them into Australia, they could have posed potentially "serious quarantine, environmental and health" risks, customs officials said. [He exaggerated.]

Hilarious...
Not the deed on the face of it but the reaction of the "EXPERTS" and the silly reporter citing the litany of hazards to the eco-system and public health for bringing in some cory catfish and plecostomus.
Australia has tons of freshwater fish...already in shops all over so this 'unauthorized import' of those same common fish is redundant and harmless.
Its like she tried to smuggle in coals to Newcastle or snow to Alaska. It makes her more silly then a threat to anything. On top of it all, the fish aren't hardly worth anything!
Now if she crossed the Tijuana border with 50 juv clarions...she'd have something!
Oz has a more serious quarintine period then anyone as they seek to keep ....what..."white spot and ick " out of Australia...?
As far as invasive species hype goes...they already have tons of em in captivity...its the releasing of them thats the issue and the offense...

I guess we need a drum roll now while the experts flip thru the Burgess atlas.
If this is indicative of their thinking on issues of trivial pursuit....God save the Australian environment from its own guardians.

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

If those same FW fish are already in Aus. that is a bit silly.

 

[Anonymous]

so law enforcement should only be enacted based on the seriousness of the OUTCOME of the act?

geez, now i can walk into a bank waving a gun and as long as no one gets hurt, no harm, no foul :roll:

the exaggeration of the danger of those fish aside-that individual broke the law, and transported livestock into a country illegally-if she doesn't get punished, what precedent does that set for someone who smuggles in something actually dangerous, or invasive? :wink:

 

[clarionreef]

"what precedent does that set for someone who smuggles in something actually dangerous, or invasive? "

You mean like an industry that bases itself on an illegal, destructive, unsustainable, harmful, routine stream of cyanide collected livestock?

Good point!
Steve
PS.
Then charge her with
a] being a dumb-ass
and 2] 4th degree smuggling

 

[Anonymous]

how about charging her for what she's actually done?

illegal smuggling/transportation of livestock across international boundaries, and illegal 'importation' of livestock into australia?



since when does the end have a bearing on the wrongness of the mean ?

 

[Anonymous]

and since when do the practices of an industry have bearing on what should be done when an individual breaks the law?

(is it my understanding steve that you think she shouldn't own up to her illegal act, simply because the 'industry' does illegal things?)

 

[clarionreef]

V,
The industry is comprised of individuals....
I was just musing on the excessive punishment for the small fry when the big ones do it and get away with it on a permanant basis.
Then again, picking on small fry is safer.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

'picking' on smaller fry always makes it easier to 'pick out' the bigger fish :wink:

 

[clarionreef]

There are no bigger fish to fry....or follow.
She was looking to save a hundred bucks on plecos and corys. A one shot deal.
She serves as a token to allow alleged eco-folks to get all holy and uppity....while missing what really counts, as usual.
Hang her then....
Steve

 

[clarionreef]

There are no bigger fish to fry....or follow.

 

[Anonymous]

so simply because someone is small fry automatically makes the gesture of holding them accountable to the law a 'token'?

i'd hate to have you in law enforcement re: drug violations-99% of all offenders would be scott free

 

[clarionreef]

Reminds me of the Nixon doctrine of nailing pot offenders and letting the heroine dealers and cocaine dealers slide.
Thats all.
steve

 

[desheriff]

Wether we have this fish or she is part of some big fish importing gang
is inmaterial she was caught at the gate trying to import fish illegaly and will no doubt get a fine they always put they can do 10 years etc but never do.
Yes we have tight quarantine laws and it regulates what comes these fish may sick or carring some parasite etc the laws are in place for a reason and the ethics of it should not really be questioned.
Regards Steve

 

[clarionreef]

"Yes we have tight quarantine laws and it regulates what comes these fish may sick or carring some parasite..."

Australia imports lot of fish and the thing about quarantine and parasite control is bogus.
Every marinefish disease ever to kill a coral beauty is already in Australia....home grown. There is no guarding against disease of foreign fish in play. Conversely, Aussie exports have often been accompanied by oodinium, crypt, fluke and the usual array of bacterial infections. These are husbandry issues....not imported plagues.

The quarantine however does serve to kill a lot of fish waiting for the day they are deemed clean enough to sell.
Forcing importers to large house volumes of fish in close quarters for a long time is abusive...its harms them and requires more imports to replace the numbers lost.
The alledged basis for it is disease control....as in bird quarantine.

The difference in bird pathology and disease control is light years apart from the quick percolating fish ailments. Yet...in a huge lapse in judgement...they were lumped together and the quarantine stuck.

Many Aussies are aware of the false basis for the quarantine already. It only sounds good to non-combatants....and non involved people and non dealers.

I do question the judgement, the wisdom and the basis for it.
Its frankly silly and 'un-Australian'. :?
I for one have always thought of the Aussies as not having that over imaginative and over sensitive cassandra complex when it came to nature....
Relax...No imported plecos with or without papers....will infect the koalas or the barramundis.
Steve

 

[desheriff]

Who are you to comment on what is or not un- Australian. :roll:

As I said we have laws in place and she broke them.
You want to take the moral high ground have a good look in your own back yard before you start on ours.

We probabley have the best managed Marine Aquarium Fishery going and there may be some who are not up to speed but the way things are going I am sure they will be weeded out.

I am in the industry as a collctor and exporter.

Regards Steve

 

[clarionreef]

G'day Mate,
You are in fact the first Aussie fish handler that has sided with the bureacrats on this stuff.
Over regulating Aussie collectors with bird laws has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the guys all over Queensland at all.
Have a chat with Hose, Briggsi, Fenton, Johnno or Mike Lark.
Making Oz an import country of often cyanide caught species from Asia whilst mandating quarantines on them will kill a lot of fish....
You have had such great local fish for so long, now you get to suffer the same quality issues as the rest of the West.
Theoretically, the Quarantine will keep out locally available common fish diseases from being imported?
Silly knee jerk bureaucratic poppycock.

The compliment I made about Aussies referred to their common sense approach to things....the joke is...." since when did they join the rest of the world in this pseudo-eco-fish health thru quarantine nonsense?"
Steve
PS....
Three times with a straight face now;
""Keep the universal and super common white spot disease out of Oz...
Keep the universal and super common white spot disease out of Oz!"

 

[desheriff]

Back to the original issue ours laws right or wrong are the law and she broke them do the crime do the time
With regard ti importing fish from Asia etc thats down to the importer do do his her research to make sure the fish they are getting are caught and handeled in the right manner.
If you spend 20 or 30 grand on an import facilty then you owe to yourself and customers to reseach or sources. And its not hard to find information on reputable collectors
I dont think that it greatly impacts on the domestic market here and some quarantine is better then none short of doing a through investigation of each fish you will never stop disease coming in but take steps minimise yes.
The world seems to think that Ausssies will go with the flow and to a certain extent they do but we do have valid opinions and informed ones to offer.

Regards Steve

 

[bookfish]

Indeed, and you're most welcome to offer them up here.
Thanks for posting.-Jim

 

[clarionreef]

He writes;
"And its not hard to find information on reputable collectors"...
If the whole system is based on cyanide fish thruout much of the Indo and Philippine inventory...
Where does this reputable collectors bit come in...?

You mean as in reputable cocaine dealers or what? All cyanide fishing is illegal....so is buying it....exporting it...and importing it!
The trade exists by virtue of the fact that a cyanide test has never been woven into enforcement policy by any export or import nation.
If that happens....everyone instantly becomes a receiver of illegal goods, including those dealing with ....reputable dealers...large, polite , professional and er...reputable, the worst offenders of all.
This trade is based on a crime. An institutional crime where only the poor fisherman ever get nailed for it.
The fact that Australia now imports cyanide fish routinely in deference to its own clean supply makes it an accomplice...at last.

Steve
ps.
[ I relize you ment shippers... as importers do not know the collectors...And its not hard to find information on reputable collectors