A long weekend of cockle collecting, and in some cases poaching, has renewed locals' calls for ban on the hobby at Lake Illawarra.
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Hundreds of people visited the lake across the weekend to collect cockles, however, not all followed the legal limit of 50 per person.
Rob Chilton was out on Monday trying to hand out flyers to people, in various languages, to educate them on the bag limit, need for a licence and parking situation.
"A lot of people do the right thing but I also know some people don't," he said. "I believe it is only the minority of people who are opportunistic and take more than 50.
"The signs with the bag limits are small so some people might not know the rules. Locals, and fisheries need to educate people about the rules."
However, resident John Davey believes those who come to collect cockles at Lake Illawarra know the rules and deliberately try to get away with taking more.
"People have been collecting cockles at the lake for five years now and the number of people coming has grown exponentially," he said.
"There were hundreds of people at the lake across the weekend. You couldn't park a car either side of Windang Bridge because there were so many cars.
"Now people are using boats to drop their friends or family out in areas away from where fisheries officers can see them and then they harvest too many from that area.
"People also go to one area then get in the car and move to another area. Or they move the cockles around their cars to avoid being detected."
Mr Davey is organising an online petition to the state government, and if enough people sign it, the petition will be debated in Parliament.
He is calling for a two-year moratorium on cockle fishing so the population can recover.
During that time he wants to see a cockle population study carried out so officials better understand the number of cockles in the lake and therefore how many cockles one person can sustainable take.
Mr Davey would also like to see significant fines for anyone caught poaching during the moratorium and then once the population has replenished a reintroduction of sustainable collection.
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