Deputy chairwoman Christine Garey, at yesterday's board meeting, said given the importance of wildlife tourism to the Peninsula's economy, it was vital the board pushed for stronger deterrents for poachers. She would write the letter, to "urge" Ms Wilkinson to act.
Chairman John Bellamy said it was significant a sentencing judge in Dunedin recently took the "unusual" step of calling for a higher penalty for the "hideous behaviour" of protected wildlife smuggling.
In the Dunedin District Court this month, Dieter Wilhelm Ernst and Thorsten Gerhard Horst Richartz were each sentenced to four and a-half months' jail for hunting and possessing protected wildlife.
They had been caught with four jewelled geckos, three of which were from the Otago Peninsula.
As the sentences for the two charges were concurrent, and the pair had already spent eight and a-half weeks in jail, they were sent back to Germany.
At the sentencing, Judge Stephen Coyle urged Parliament to look at revisiting the maximum penalty (six months' imprisonment and/or a $100,000 fine) as wildlife thefts appeared to be increasing.
Earlier this month, a spokesman for Ms Wilkinson told the Otago Daily Times a planned law change would lift the maximum penalty to a $200,000 fine and/or three years' imprisonment.
