Paua poachers on the Coromandel this summer have not only had to avoid fishery officers and honorary fishery officers, they have had to steer clear of police as well.

On two occasions during the last few months police stops of vehicles on the peninsula have uncovered fishers with well over their daily legal limit of paua and possession of undersized paua.

In the first incident, in mid January, police stopped three South Auckland men as they were driving out of Tairua.

A search of their vehicle uncovered 129 paua.

All had been taken from the Tairua area and all were under the legal minimum size of 125mm.

The men were each entitled to take just 10 paua, but had actually plundered more than four times their legal daily limit.

Fishery officers charged the three offenders with possession of excess and undersize paua and their late model Honda station wagon was seized.

In the second incident, just a few weeks later, police at Port Jackson stopped another three men as they were driving a vehicle stolen from lower down the Coromandel peninsula.

This time, the search of the vehicle revealed 54 paua, all of which were again under the legal minimum size limit.

All three now face the prospect of $500 infringement fines in addition to any charges the police might bring in relation to the stolen vehicle.

Ministry of Fisheries Bay of Plenty/Waikato/Coromandel field operations manager Brendon Mikkelsen says those intent on plundering the region's fisheries should be aware that under the Fisheries Act 1996 all police officers are also fishery officers.

'A police officer can exercise all the powers of a fishery officer,” says Brendon.

'This means they can, if they have reasonable grounds, stop and search a vehicle if they believe its occupants have been involved in fisheries offending.”

Brendon says it is sad to see 'the greedy few” continuing to plunder the Coromandel's paua beds.

'There are virtually no legal size paua on the Coromandel.

'This means those who go paua fishing have to be very, very careful if they are not to break the law.

'They also need to realise that, if they do take excess or undersized paua, they not only have to look out for police and fishery officers.

'Members of our communities continually demonstrate that they do not support those who plunder our resources.

'The fish thieves need to understand that there are now four million guardians helping to keep an eye on our fisheries and willing to ring the ministry's popular 0800 4 POACHER number when they see something suspicious.”