I’d like to begin with a segment of a letter I wrote to the Minister about the Kahawai Position Paper - July 8, 2005 : (Pdf below).
“You expressed dismay because the recreational sector are taking the Ministry to court over their failure to manage the kahawai fishery.
The following two pages were taken from the kahawai “Initial Position Paper, dated July 8, 2005.” If you have a look at them it will be obvious why we’ve had to take this desperate measure.
Page one shows the recreational kahawai catch. When I did the math, it came out to less than one kahawai being caught per boat, or around 1/3 of a kahawai per fisher. The average fisher would have to spend three days to catch one kahawai! You can see why we say there are no kahawai left in the water.
Page two shows the commercial kahawai catch. Between 1986 and 1991, despite strenuous objections from the recreational sector, over 15 million kahawai were taken commercially; creating the damaged fishery we live with today.
Now look at the declining commercial kahawai catches since that time. What I see here is that:
despite steadily declining commercial catches the recreational catch has not improved.
The recreational catch of a species is a pretty good indicator of the fish in the water; more accurate than much of the data available to managers; and we have thirteen years of it. That data says the fishery is not recovering.
Despite this ominous pattern, the Ministry has decided in its Position Paper that we should either do nothing, or reduce the catch by 10%! Isn’t this more of that “too little, too late” style of management they are so famous for?
Perhaps it’s time you instructed the Ministry to actually manage and come up with a rapid and effective recovery plan. I’d suggest an end to the targeting of kahawai by purse seiners as a start. It might save the Ministry heaps of bad publicity, lots of court time, and money.”
Some other specific comments on the “Position paper:”
7c) |
This is not anecdotal information. Look at page 32. Surely you don’t think catching 1/3 a kahawai a day is acceptable? |
7j) |
Commercial fishers have no way of knowing if kahawai abundance is declining-they use planes AND fish in areas of peak population density; the last place the population will decline. |
14) |
There is actually no evidence that Bmsy (as defined as 20%-30% of the original biomass) would maximize the yield from the kahawai fishery. What is true for one species is not necessarily true for another. |
24) |
Most of the damage to the fishery was done before 1992. Sampling since 2000 might not be relevant. The data I’ve seen comparing sizes with fish from the early 1980s does show a decline in the percentage of large fish. |
76) |
Setting a size limit on kahawai is silly. It’s best to take the smaller fish and leave the big ones. You could regulate by number of fish but that would be silly too; can you make the limit less than 1/3 fish a day?
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92) |
True, but the seiners should be limited to that incidental catch. The only effective management tool you have left is to eliminate the targeting of kahawai by the seiners.
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145b) |
I thought we got rid of this aerial data years ago. It keeps popping up like a dead body. That data was taken by aircraft patrolling an area where the fish are known to concentrate. That’s the last place the fish will disappear from. If we use data like this we’ll be falling into the same trap the Canadians did when they managed the cod into collapse. |
Dr Mark Feldman
Kerikeri, Northland
| Ministry of Fisheries Initial Position Paper (IPP) setting out the two options for future management of kahawai stocks... Read it here >> >> |
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