Poaching

Japanese Fined For Poaching

THE detention of the Japanese schooner Yocikune Maru in Admiralty Islands in September resulted in 24 Japanese, including the master, Shumpe Gomi, appearing in the District Court at Rabaul on October 23, for alleged breaches of the immigration and fisheries ordinances.

The master also appeared on six charges of breaches of the fisheries, customs, quarantine, and immigration ordinances.

The defendants pleaded guilty to all charges.

One of the charges against the master

was that he had taken 697 trochus shells under the minimum size permitted by law.

Evidence was given that as an offset to the depressed state of the copra industry, several planters in Admiralty Islands were co-operating with the natives in establishing fisheries on a number of reefs with a view to preventing the extinction of trochus shell.

Each defendant was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and fines totalling £1,800 were imposed. In announcing his decision, the magistrate said that relevant laws, especially the quarantine and immigration ordinances, provided for heavy penalties, and, in view of the apparent deliberate breaches by defendants, he regarded the offences as serious.

Left: The bow of the captured sampan. Right: Some of the Japanese crew, on the deck of the sampan, under guard by New Guinea police boys.—Photos, by Mr. T. K. Colquhoon, Manus, T.N.G.