Another One Busted! Goodo.

[Earthling]

Man fined over illegal wildlife sales


A 67-year-old Queensland man has been convicted and fined $80,000 for selling protected wildlife.
Grant Arthur Nicholls today pleaded guilty to 21 charges in the Redcliffe Magistrates Court north of Brisbane, relating to the unlicensed selling of more than 600 native snakes, lizards, frogs and birds.
State Minister for Sustainability Andrew McNamara says the Deception Bay man had a permit to keep certain animals, but not to trade them.
Mr McNamara says the investigation also involved customs officers, and wildlife authorities from Victoria, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales.

 

[Daniel_Penrith]

Great find!!!! Glad they got him...........was he selling natives or exotics or both??

 

[Tatelina]

Only 21 charges for 600 native animals?

 

[Jonno from ERD]

Wow, Parks and Wildlife must have employed a real PIRANHA to go after this guy...

 

[Jason2]

It sounds like this guy had something like 200 transactions per year over a three year period.
Makes one wonder at what number QPWS deems it to be a commercial operation

 

[cris]

I dont get it what exactly did he do wrong?

 

[Serpant_Man]

He was not correctly licensed to sell those animals which meant he probably bought and sold animals to and from people who were not licensed.

 

[hornet]

its illegal to sell reptiles commercially in qld.

 

[Glider]

Here's another news article with a little more detail:

This was taken from: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23399179-5005962,00.html

A QUEENSLAND man has been convicted and fined $80,000 for unlawfully trading in protected wildlife.

Grant Arthur Nicholls, 67, today pleaded guilty in Brisbane to 21 charges relating to trading in native snakes, lizards, frogs and birds.

The court was told that Nicholls, from Brisbane, commercially sold more than 600 animals between February 2004 and April 2007.

Nicholls held a licence under the Nature Conservation Act to keep certain animals, but was not allowed to trade in animals on a commercial basis.

Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara said the licensing arrangements were designed to stop native animals being taken from the wild and to prevent their laundering through the pet industry.

"These licensing arrangements also seek to minimise the risk of disease being spread by the unregulated movement of protected wildlife through Queensland and interstate," Mr McNamara said.

"Today's fine and conviction should serve as a warning that illegally trading in native wildlife can result in significant penalties."

 

[Glider]

Sounds to me like he had a Recreational licence but was buying and selling a number of animals that was considered excessive by the EPA.

If EPA considered it excessive they would see it as commercial, which he was not licenced for, and the list of commercially tradeable species is much more restricted than those available under a recreational licence, so he would have probably been considered by epa to be commercially trading animals that were not permitted to be commercially traded even if he did have a commercial licence.

 

[CodeRed]

Were they wild caught or did he just sell too many animals for his particular grade of license?

 

[hornet]

both

 

[Chris1]

this is probably a stupid question, but do u need a special licence to breed/sell animals?
i thought it all just went on the normal reptile keepers license,...

 

[hornet]

only need a comercial licence if buying and selling.

 

[Glider]

No thats not quite right.
You can buy and sell under a recreational licence too. There are just rules as to how many, what type and how much income you make from the sales before a commercial licence is more appropriate.

 

[Jonno from ERD]

Glider, EPA have absolutely no jurisdiction over how much income you can make from your animals. What they do have jurisdiction over is the time frame between purchasing and selling an animal, how many animals you buy/sell, how many of a single species you possess at any one time and what species you have.

 

[CodeRed]

Does QLD have the 6 month rule for recreational licenses?

 

[Jonno from ERD]

Sure do, CodeRed.

 

[geckodan]

The real story is that he was wild collecting large numbers of animals, pretending to breed them and sending them all interstate without filling out any paperwork this end ( by only dealing with states that did not require to an import permit number from him) .This is how all the hooded scalyfoots, burtons, asper etc. suddenly came to be available at the same time. They could not prove he was wild collecting but they could prove he wasn't breeding as most of his "breeders" were pairs of males. (this info comes from our local ranger).

 

[zulu]

re Another

Makes me wonder how they sexed the small lizards,tiaro pub in QLD had a big brown tree snake in a bottle that was identified by QLD NPWS as a taipan so the owner told me