A Kaikōura dairy farmer has been fined $35,000 after failing to properly track hundreds of cattle under New Zealand’s national animal identification system.

Trevor Ronald Bolton, 59, was sentenced in the Kaikōura District Court on 6 March after pleading guilty to three representative charges under the NAIT Act. The case was brought by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

Bolton runs two dairy farms in the Kaikōura area and was responsible for managing the animals on those properties.

MPI’s investigation found he failed to register 269 cattle in the NAIT system. He also failed to declare 571 cattle that were moved off farm and did not record the movement of 83 cattle brought onto his farms.

The court fined him $11,666 for each offence, bringing the total penalty to $35,000.

Under the NAIT system, farmers must report when cattle or deer are moved between farms within 48 hours. Animals must also be fitted with a NAIT tag and registered in the system by the time they are 180 days old, or before they leave the property.

Ministry for Primary Industries District Manager of Animal Welfare and NAIT Compliance Upper South Paul Soper said the rules were essential for tracking animals during disease outbreaks or biosecurity events.

“The system is critical to New Zealand’s ability to trace potentially affected animals to manage disease or biosecurity incursions. This farmer’s failures under the NAIT Act related to almost 1,000 animals. As we have learned from our experience with Mycoplasma bovis it only takes one animal to cause a problem,” Soper said.

“MPI takes non compliance with NAIT seriously. Put simply, when people in charge of animals disregard or fail to live up to their NAIT obligations they put the whole agricultural sector at risk,” he said.