They should also get a ban from fishing, they were clearly aware of what they were doing .

Those fines should have another zero tagged onto the end of them! As if the poor crabs haven't been hammered enough these blokes come along and take the next generation.

Subject them to a public flogging.

Its not their fault they couldnt read the regulations.  Agree the penalty should be harsher.

more pain to the hip pocket . Seems a bit weak,reckon if they were undersized Crays there definitely would have been another 0 on that number and maybe bye bye to their car too.

 Yep, agree the fines should have been a lot more. 

 Those penalties are a bloody joke. Should be up there with the penalties put on marron infringements. What makes our crab fishery any less important than other fisheries?? Penalties should be the same no matter what the species, an undersize fish is an undersize fish!!! Especially 152 of them! Unbelievable 

Yi Chen, XueGuang Ge, Yunbin Lin Xiangliang Song, Xiyou Wang and Yajuan Wang should all be deported.......

Feel free to call me racist, cos in this case, I am.

 From me

 The fines are an absolute joke! We are a victim of our own penaltys! I bet jiang how and and co. have done this many times before and made a shitload of $2 dollars out of it. Our judiciary is a pile of crap. No wonder they exploit it... and why not? I bet they are FIFO workers "specialists in their trade", on 3g plus a week. My bloods boiling at the thought of it!  

Well done to the judge who ordered these  penalties... NOT!!!! Hang your head in shame!

 So whats the fine if one takes a few undersize ones ? $ 15 ? $ 20 ? 
What's to stop people taking a few here and there when they see results like that and know they wont get much but a slap with a few bucks. Poxy. 

 Obviously fisheries rate it as a low value fishery with those fines 

  justice sytem dishes out. Are they mates? It gets better!!!

http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/About-Us/Media-releases/Pages/Southern-abalone-zone-compliance-collects-big-fines.aspx

 They all knew exactly what they were doing and I am sure they also knew the law regarding size and numbers.......why else would they try and ditch the evidence ??

They knew what a small penalty it was as well and that's why they have that "Don't give a shit" attitude.

People like this certainly don't give a rats about fishing for the future and should be fined a hell of a lot more and/or banned from taking crabs for a certain period. You need to hit people where it hurts or they will just continue to play the system.

 What happens if these pricks default on their fines? Yeah agree very light fine considering they were caught red handed with so many. 

 I recon if they default on the fines for the crabs then there should be a process in place that enables the cancellation of their drivers licence or impound the car that took them there.

Just need to make people think twice about the penalties and the consequences before they take the risk.

This of course won't stop them all .....people still kill people knowing they could be locked up in the big house for a while and they still do it !!

It really only stops the "Honest theives", taking under sized crabs is theiving in my books. It's taking away the fish stocks for future generations to enjoy.

Just my thoughts.

(How did I go with my punctuation and spelling Sea-Kem ?.....hahaha....Just kidding) 

 Those fines are shithouse get more for driving while talking on your phone. Should feed the wankers to the crabs that would stop them

Congratulations DoF on a good pitch, it's a real pity the judiciary don't reflect the seriousness of the offence.

The fact that they were seen throwing buckets of crabs into the bush is evidence that they new they were breaking the law.

The DoF print up the regulations for the taking of crabs in a number of foreign languages, and the act clearly states the ignorance of the regulations is no defence.

Fisheries get plundered when persons of ill repute consider the risk and the penalty for being court are worth while taking. Unfortunately in this instance the penalty for breaking the law is such that the risk is worth taking. The crab fishery at Mandurah is just as important as the Rock lobster fishery IMO and the penalties should reflect this.

By their action in capturing these people taking excess numbers and undersize crabs that they take the regulations seriously and you just never know when they will be parked up on a road conduction catch inspections.

It is up to all of us to report people suspected of undertaking suspicious activities. In fact I'll go so far as to say it's bloody un-Australian not to report them.

Rant over

 Mandatory fine to me translates into a fine of $1467.90 regardless of whether you have mistakenly 1 or intentionally 1000 crabs undersize or over the limit , every incentive if your so inclined to go for gold if that’s the case .. yet the crayfish blokes a while back scored something like a total $50’000 worth of fines and boat confiscation etc . 

So they the crims get busted 1 out of 10 times they are still miles in front .. but crime doesn’t pay right 

I think part of the problem is that the guide, in particular the guide translated to various languages, clearly states that there is a fine of up to $5,000 for taking berried females, there is a fine of same amount for not keeping uncooked crabs whole, but the section about bag limit and size limt does not specifically state anything about a fine!!

The reason I say this is that on one occasion I pointed out the size and bag limit to a group of scoopers who were counting their catch on the shore. They quickly whipped out the guide and pointed to the bag limit and undersize sections bragging that there was no fine. After I pointed to the disclaimer AT THE END of the guide that says  "Please note that fishing activities may be subject to surveillance by Fisheries and Marine Officers. Fines for offences may be as high as $5,000 plus up to 10 times the prescribed value of the species", they sheepishly started returning the clearly undersize ones to the water ( no measure on them of course). While the crims in the article above clearly knew what they were doing , I wonder how many people have simply misinterpreted the guide. I don't refute that ignorance of the rules is an excuse but we could at least have the rules described a lot better.

www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/recreational_fishing/additional_fishing_information/rules_guide_crabbing_west_coast_multilingual.pdf

With the annual Mandurah Crabfest coming up next weekend it is the perfect opportunity for Fisheries to setup a prominent display naming and shaming all those who were caught this season and warn people of the maximum penalties for ANY offence. Of course this would have to be backed up by fines that match the seriousness of the offence.

Definitely need harsher penalties, even more so for repeat offenders.

Would be really nice to see some sort of jail term or deportation in the future.  

I'm Asian and these retards are just giving us proper fishos a bad name.

 Then call Fisheries and complain that their literature isn't clear. If they don't know they can't correct. Don't rely on someone to read this thread to do something about it. It's not just this issue, if Fisheries is short on something that is within their sphere to correct let them know. It only takes a phone call. This goes for the fines as well if you think the maximums are not high enough. What the magistrate imposes is not Fisheries fault although with higher maximums it allows the Court to impose higher fines.