i remember reading reports from people studying at Goat Is and how they found the fish so tame and easy to work,
how the system inside a marine reserves was so natural and balanced,
the ongoing growth of fish and crustaceans would benefit and reseed the Gulf,
put more reserves in place and bingo all our problems solved, yeah right...
  
after years of study they now know the real truth, funny that,
but why is it that people with the ability to look outside the square that notice these things then have to fight the scientists with varsity degrees and what not just to be heard???

sound similar MPI...

i used to spend a lot of time in the water diving and over the years the worst thing ive seen is the deterioration of the water quality,
    

KikBac wrote: Reserves do absolutely nothing for conservation if TAC remains UNCHANGED. All that happens is fishing pressure in other areas increases and the same amount of biomass is removed from the ocean, albeit from a slightly different area.

I agree, although I can accept Marine Reserves in principle my believe is that they do nothing to inhance fishery recovery outside of their boundaries.

the angler wrote: At the very least they should be a nice place to go diving and actually see and interact with some marine life. And practise your cray catching skills.

but you go back 20 years and that is not how everyone looked at these marine reserves, they wanted the bloody things everywhere and some of those are still in existence today, which are totally useless...

we have one being applied to the Bay of Islands within the next year or two because they want to protect the marine life,

so we still have this belief its the in thing to do.... 

Can see they could work in small areas for resident reef fish-maybe. But overall most of our temperate zone fish move around alot. No reserve ,however big would contain most fish within its protective limits.

Most Marine reserves are a feel good distraction from the real issue no one seems willing to confront.
That is Overfishing.

Dealing with overfishing with marine reserves is like trying to solve Aucklands traffic congestion by building more infill housing ,and then telling everyone they should catch a bus, even though the bus dosent go where they want it to go.

I'm a proponent for marine reserves in the right places. But yip you'd be a moron to believe they do much for the proliferation of some particular sea life when the comms operate the way they do under licence from your government. The one in the whangarei harbour is a joke. Just ridiculous. Try telling that to the nazi doc worker who polices it though. and yip agree water quality and what's happening outside the reserve needs to be part of the equation.

pjc wrote: the reserve by ponui island is another joke,middle of a busy waterway and never caught decent fish before it became a reserve

Yeah and it is not uncommon to see boats anchored up and obviously fishing in there. 

Yep I live next to, and work in, that marine reserve (Te Matuku Bay Marine Reserve). I agree if you don't know it's there the signage is hardly going to inform you. And to exacerbate the problem the colliding currents around Passage rock tend to hold a lot of bait schools/work-ups, which cause a lot of fisho's to stop for a crack on the way through.

When it was gazetted in 2005 the rational behind the location of the reserve was that it encompassed a range of representative regional marine habitats, being- a large mangrove forest, a relatively undeveloped bay, and a section of the Tamaki straight.

I think the idea behind this reserve was to preserve a breeding ground/nursery area for local inshore fish species (Flounder, Mullet etc).

Personally I'm nonplussed about having a marine reserve in the bay, except in summer when packs of kingis are cruising around in knee deep water! However stingrays seem to be the major benefactor of the reserve status.

Goat Is has been going now since 1975, how much overflow do you think it has produced Glaucus????

how many Crays would you say overflow from the reserve each year?
how many snapper?
reef fish?

at a guess i would say very few of anything that leaves the protection would last too long,
so really they are just a glorified section of sea that has a ban on taking,
yes i agree they are fantastic if you want to see how the ocean should be, not like how it is...

they certainly have there place but some say we need 10% of our oceans locked up in reserves so they can keep replacing the caught fish, well that is bulls wool,

the real truth is the Fishing Companies need to take a break and give the fish a rest,
and MPI need to look at how this whole mess is to be fixed, because they are the true idiots by letting this sort of depletion of our inshore fishery continue,

how can you have Trev's, Gurnard, JDs, Mullet, Flounder, be taken at such a rate the TACC can not be reached???
the figures they are allowed to take is near twice that of what they catch,
this is one of the biggest problems which is causing low fish stocks in our inshore fishery nothing to do with the need for more reserves....
  

i am with you on that Catchelot, they even have "tie to" floats which were placed so no anchours and chains  could damage the sea bed,
out of sight out of mind doing their own thing without human interaction to miss guide them,
when you see how snapper school behind boats at the Poor Knights because people are feeding them, then its not normal, and of course the snapper will over populated the place due to all the feed they are given....
humans are the root of all evil even when the intentions are purely good....