On Tuesday, at the Kyneton Magistrates’ Court, Glenn Richard Rollo, 74, pleaded guilty to 13 charges and was fined 10,000 Australian dollars. The Conservation Regulator had found, last year, at his home and antiques shop, more than 700 dead animals, frozen or stuffed. A fine, not prison. Dump ABC.

Seventy-eight emus, 42 brushtail possums, 26 echidnas. Remains of threatened species: the barking owl, the diamond python, the Murray River short-necked turtle. Fifteen live reptiles, native snakes and turtles, plus North American red-eared sliders and corn snakes, prohibited in Victoria without authorisation. Two counts: 700 dead, 15 live. Do not mix them.

The charges he admitted include selling and possessing protected and threatened wildlife, failing to treat a sick animal, and keeping wildlife in an unsuitable enclosure. Magistrate Patrick Southey said the fine would have been 15,000 without the plea. 10,000 is the penalty. 15,000 is the counterfactual. It is not a jail term.

Cal Heppell, the Conservation Regulator’s director of regulatory operations: anyone who keeps, trades or possesses wildlife must comply; the requirements are not optional. The Age wrote of a four-day raid in April 2025 and 14 freezers. The ABC said only “last year”, across two properties. Stay with the ABC for the date. That is not Tuesday’s sentence.

Georgie Purcel, an Animal Justice MP who lives near the shop, said 10,000 dollars does not send a message. That is a political view. It is not the court’s order. Nor is the modernising of the Wildlife Act.

Dump ABC. The rewrite rests on the ABC and The Age.

Image: an emu on Ballan Road, near Manor Lakes, Victoria, 20 June 2010, Rexness, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. A live bird, not the specimens seized in Kyneton.

Sources consulted: Antiques dealer fined after raid uncovers 700 dead native animals, including 78 stuffed emus — The Age.