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“WHITEBAIT”

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #25 on: April 03, 2009, 03:11:29 pm »


The whitebate debate

The Marlborough Express | Wednesday, 10 October 2007

NET GAIN: The sheer number of people now fishing for whitebait is putting pressure on the little fish, according to Marlborough District Council scientist Pete Hamill. The Marlborough Express.

NET GAIN: The sheer number of people now fishing for whitebait is
putting pressure on the little fish, according to Marlborough District
Council scientist Pete Hamill. — The Marlborough Express


The Wairau Diversion is a good spot to while away a few hours waiting for a run of whitebait. But changes in the rules for the quiet pastime upset have a few people. DAVE WILLIAMS reports.

One of the most popular spots for whitebaiting in Marlborough is the Wairau Diversion where dozens of whitebaiters have been patiently waiting for runs of the fish since the season started in mid August.

But with recent changes in camping rules along the left bank of the Wairau Diversion some long time whitebaiters are unhappy at what has happened, saying they can't find any space to put their nets in the water.

Blenheim's Eric Johnston says the Department of Conservation (DOC) is promoting conservation of the fish, but at the same time the Marlborough District Council is not helping by allowing freedom camping "for months at a time" on the left bank of the diversion.

"Thus turning the baiting season into a commercial enterprise where we have a line of sock nets in the river for 12 to 14 hours a day," Mr Johnston says.

"I have counted 13 big nets from the mouth of the river upwards. I go whitebaiting every year on the West Coast at Karamea, and you would only see one of those nets in the whole river."

He says the big nets would be in the water from 5am to 8pm, and they were "scooping the pool and nothing's there".

"No wonder a working person wanting to catch a feed for their family has no chance of enjoying a treat of bait."

He questions where else anyone could park free of charge on council property.

Longterm whitebait fisherman Ray Ching says the freedom campers take up a lot of space, so much that people arriving later in the day cannot get access to the water.

"There's too many down there. But what they should do I am not sure, but they should review the situation."

The freedom camping policy at the diversion, into its second year specifically for the whitebait season, is a solution to a pollution problem that arose when whitebaiters had to stay overnight at a nearby DOC reserve.

Previously whitebaiters would overnight on the reserve and move on to the river bank at the allowed times.

Council reserves and amenities manager Rosie Bartlett says the campers often did not have self containment facilities, and that led to local pollution problems.

Changing the camping rules meant the council was able to exercise control over what vehicles were allowed to camp on the diversion.

The campers can now park there for 14 days but must have a self containment certificate. The council monitors it twice a week.

"Since the scheme has been brought in there have been very few problems. It's working very well," she says.

There generally were no complaints from the area, and it self monitored itself, Ms Bartlett says.

But are there commercial whitebaiters on the diversion?

Ms Bartlett says she is not aware of any commercial whitebaiters in the area, and it appears most are retired people.

And whitebaiters spoken to by The Marlborough Express were not concerned with overnight campers or commercial fishermen.

Jim Greer, fishing at the mouth of the river, says he has no problem with the campers, as long as they follow the rules.

"There's not many places they can camp now, and in some ways they are probably doing good. There are usually hoons racing around there."

And Gary Timms says the campers are just retired people enjoying the opportunity to go whitebaiting. He does not think it would be commercially viable to sit there and whitebait all day.

And that is echoed by the likes of Jim and Shirley Mears, who have been staying in their mobile home at the diversion since the season opened.

They have been coming down to the diversion for up to five years and say most of the campers there were retired people. They maintain that people at the diversion do not catch enough whitebait to do it commercially.

They say the situation is no different if they were confined to the DOC reserve overnight, they would still park on the diversion at 4am as had happened before freedom camping was allowed.

"We have this every year, some people complain about motorhomes. We are sitting here in the warm having a cup of tea, and they are freezing cold, you can understand it," Mrs Mears says.

But that is part of the argument also raised by some whitebaiters, that people can sit in the comfort of their campervans and have their nets sit in the river all day.

Whitebaiter George Illingworth says he is not going down to the Diversion this year, after fishing there for 15 or 20 years.

It's "too big a hassle", he says.

"I don't mind them camping there, but I don't think they should just sit there and block someone else. They expect you to stay away, but everybody has got a right to the river bank.

"I am not in favour of the big nets being set out all day, and you sitting inside your caravan if it's raining or blowing. And you are sitting there just catching everything that goes up the river. I don't think it does the whitebait much good."

He questions whether DOC should tighten up on the rules about which nets can be used.

The stories about the old days when excess whitebait was used as fertiliser are well known, and before the Wairau Plain was drained the Wairau River would have been one of the best whitebait fisheries in the world.

But the whitebait fishery has some funny rules, which would never be applied to any other resource.

There are no limits on what you can catch and you don't need a licence to fish for it. It is widely sold on the black market and has reached the heady price of $140 per kilogram this year.

You just need to follow some time, location and net size rules, and stay within 10m of your net at all times.

The rules ensure some whitebait can get past the nets, but having no limit appears to go against the rules of any fishery resource rule in the world.

DOC Marlborough community relations manager Colin Davis says it is a new development in the last four or five years that more people are using set nets, which was putting "huge" pressure on whitebait.

Mr Davis says 80 vehicles parked along the diversion is not uncommon.

He says the department had been checking for set nets left overnight and would come down pretty hard on people who broke the rules.

The department had one prosecution pending for a fisherman who was found fishing within 20m of a culvert.

As a general rule there has been a slow start to the season, but Mr Davis says there have been some reasonable catches down at the Wairau — over 5kg a day.

There is an argument that the limiting factor to whitebait numbers is the reduction of habitat, rather than overfishing.

But it is impossible to say how much is caught. People are cagey about revealing exactly how much they have actually netted.

It is difficult to get a handle on how much is taken each year, because no tax is paid on what is sold, and no-one declares how much they catch.

The fishery is viewed as something of an anomaly by local Fish and Game head Neil Deans.

Whitebait regulations are enforced by DOC and is not the responsibility of Fish and Game, but Mr Deans says it is the complete opposite to how recreational fisheries are run, where people pay for licences and cannot sell their catch.

Marlborough differs from the West Coast, where whitebait stands can be a tradeable commodity.

"There would be concern if people were able to capture public resource in that way.

"There's always been an anomaly in New Zealand, to do in part with the nature of the fishery. You never really know how much is available in any year or day."

The lack of information, and the "gold rush mentality" of the fishery gets under the collar of Marlborough District Council scientist Pete Hamill, who has been vocal in his criticism of what he calls "the culture of greed" in the fishery, and wants whitebaiters to "think beyond the frying pan".

He thinks traditional usage has probably kept the rules the way they are. Mr Hamill admits to being "quite bolshy" when he asks whitebaiters how much they have caught.

"People will say they don't have much of a catch, while they are sitting next to a full chillybin."

And he knows of people who spend six months in New Zealand and six months in Australia, their lifestyle funded by whitebait.

They were travelling around in campervans, and contacting their friends by cellphone to alert them to runs.

"Imagine if you were doing that with rimu? Just ripping it out of the bush, just so you could fund yourself living in Australia, it just wouldn't be a goer," Mr Hamill says.

Whitebait are primarily of the young of three species: inanga, koaro and banded kokopu. Inanga is by far the most commonly caught species, and he compares it with catching tuis and putting them on a stick and selling them down at the market.

Mr Hamill says the limiting factor of habitat is brought up as an argument, but says that in the lower reaches of the Wairau, land use probably hasn't changed much in the last 80 years with a lot of stock and dairy farms still operating.

"In some sense the spawning areas have possibly increased in the lower Wairau."

He says the sheer number of people fishing now — people have more time for it — is putting more pressure on the little fish.

"You talk to people and they say the catch 30 years ago was fantastic, but the habitat hasn't changed much in the last 30 years, but the number of people has.

"It's part of New Zealand's resource, and there is a black economy, and they are giving nothing back. There is no money for research or habitat enhancement."


http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlboroughexpress/4232790a19821.html
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