Crayfish CRA2

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    Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 2:37pm
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Titanium
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Fisheries have sent out an email asking what changes,if any for CRA2

Proposed changes to recreational rules for the CRA 2 rock lobster (crayfish) fishery


***Click here to go to the online survey***

Dear Fishers,
 

Have your say

Fisheries New Zealand is consulting on 2 measures proposed by the National Rock Lobster Management Group for recreational fishers in the CRA2 (Hauraki Gulf/Bay of Plenty) rock lobster fishery.

  • A reduction to the recreational daily bag limit from 6 to 3 spiny rock lobsters to help ensure recreational catch does not exceed the new 34-tonne recreational allowance.
  • The introduction of recreational telson (tail fan) clipping for spiny rock lobster to assist with minimising illegal take.

These measures follow on from significant reductions to the commercial and recreational catch allowances from 1 April this year to support a rebuild of this very important shared fishery.

We want your feedback on the proposals, which are detailed in the consultation document. The consultation runs from 7 November 2018 to 19 December 2018.

To view the consultation document and for details on how to make a submission please click here.
Figure 1: The CRA 2 fishery
***Click here to go to the online survey***

Please pass this information on to anyone who may be interested.

Kind regards, 


Recreational Fisheries - Inshore Fisheries Management

Fisheries New Zealand – Tini a Tangaroa 
Pastoral House | PO Box 2526 | Wellington | New Zealand
Web:
fisheries.govt.nz

Contact us about Recreational Fisheries [email protected]

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Tagit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 3:31pm
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Doesn't really affect me too much as we would seldom take more than 3 crays per diver per day anyway. 
What does bother me is that once again a fishery that (in this case especially) has without any doubt been massively depleted by commercial over-exploitation is to be 'rescued' by huge cuts to the recreational enjoyment of that fishery. Of course once the fishery has been wrecked, you can't do anything else but try to help revive it. Where though is the emphasis on those that wrecked it being mainly responsible for fixing it?

This is a classic case. MPI rely on commercial catch figures to assess the state of the fishery. The fishery gets more and more depleted and the recreational anglers struggle harder and harder to catch a feed. Eventually the problem is so obvious (can't be hidden any more) that a more independent study is done and we find that the stock is almost 'functionally extinct'. Surely a classic example of why we need better monitoring of the commercial fleet. Trackers, Cameras etc and all the stuff that the government now says we don't need.

Then MPI tell us that there was a problem interpreting the catch figures from the commercial fleet and they had no idea the stock was so low. Who would have guessed that could happen when you rely on those profiting from the fishery to tell you how sustainable it is?? 

So the commercial fleet have made $millions out of trashing the stock, and the recreational anglers have spent $100,000's chasing ever rarer crays. Then how do we fix it? We slash the recreational day limits and cut the commercial TACC to a limit that is expected to allow the stock to recover somewhat. 

Yes it has to happen, but where-O-where is the fairness in all this? 
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote pjc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 5:00pm
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Been thinking of solutions and fairness to all but the only solution is closure for 3yrs,when or if it reopens 3 crays per day and 1 pot person to say 3 pots if 6 or more on vessel?
Maybe recreational area only but it will put pressure on other areas if we exclude commercial. Hard one really.
hate the sustainable word as its not, sustainable to me means,every fish/cray I remove stock has replaced the one I have extracted,in that case there would never be a rebuild,to rebuild in my mind present stock would have to produce double or treble current breeding rates!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote waynorth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 6:53pm
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Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

Where though is the emphasis on those that wrecked it being mainly responsible for fixing it?

Exactly - and why in fact is the emphasis on rec fishers ?

TAC 416.5 down to 173 Down 58.5%
TACC 200 down to 80 Down 60%
Rec   140 down to 34 Down 75.7%
Customary 16.5 No change
Mortality 60 down to 42.5 Down 29%

Why is the mortality allowance reduction half that of the TAC ? Given the disproportionate reductions above, it suggests commercial gathering is the main source of unintended mortality, but the rec community is paying the price.

The customary take is small, but why no formal reduction, especially given the noted commitment (para 32 in the discussion document) to limit customary harvest permits.

Although the rec allowance, (with the daily rec limit set at 6,) is currently 140 tonnes, the estimated actual catch was 40.86 tonnes in 2011/12 dropping to 34 tonnes in 2017. There's a disconnect in the logic here - the proposed new rec catch allocation at 34 tonnes is the same as the 2017 estimated take, but with the daily limit being halved, it will require an increase in the number of dives to achieve. Yes - as they point out, many divers fail to find 6 legal crays already, but some do, so reducing the limit to 3 per day means even the 34 tonnes is unlikely to be reached. Seems a bit cynical to me 

Another hook in there too - the limits are to be reviewed at the next stock assessment, currently scheduled for 2021, but no guarantee that any increase in stock will result in a proportional increase in limits for the various sectors. Trust us - we'll see you right.
treat fish like fish
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Tagit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 7:51pm
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Got to remember that the 140t set for rec catch was supposedly the best estimate of the rec catch at the time the TAC was set. The estimated Rec take was not that much less than the Comm take (140 vs 200). All those years and the commercial harvest stayed more or less the same whilst the Rec harvest declined from a 140t estimate to 40t. That is with a significantly increased number of Rec anglers, so whilst the commercial fishers were allowed to massively deplete the resource the Rec success rate plummeted. And MPI couldn't work this out from the commercial catch effort returns? 

So who is responsible for that?

What's scary is that instead of our government representatives holding MPI accountable they climb onboard with all the excuses. Shouldn't we   expect our ministers and MP's to hold these public service agencies to account when they don't do their jobs?
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote waynorth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Nov 2018 at 8:53pm
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Exactly - if you own 1 tonne of quota you just keep going out until you've caught it each year, whether it takes 10 days or 20. The TACC will always be caught, and only the CPUE will reflect a diminishing resource. Or the declining recreational catch of course - but no one really cares about that. It's only when commercial interests start being compromised that we see some action.

If recreational divers, with an allowable limit of 6 crays per day, are currently catching an estimated 34 tonnes of fish per year, and your proposed allocation for them is the same 34 tonnes per year, then there is no justification for reducing the daily bag limit.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Garry 23041 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2018 at 6:55am
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You guys are right but I want to add that the tac will not always be caught because we are running out of fish...


The other upshot of all this depletion is lack of size in the crays. In the end I think the commercial guys will be catching only fish just over legal or under because the larger fish will have been removed.
They will be sifting through the available crays at a faster rate I think.
When I watch the south island cray program I notice very few large crays being caught.
Am I seeing this correctly?
I sure notice a lack of crays on my frequent dive trips compared to just a few years ago with larger ones becoming few in comparison.
No science though, just observation and common sense so I guess my input has no value to many...

We leave small legal crays because they have no leg meat yet but I notice more and more younger guys claiming a successful dive have a bin full of little just legal crays...

As Tagit suggested, it looks like another re distribution from recs to commercial is in the pipeline with a net result of a faster depletion of stocks.


Rest assured they will hand back the fishery to the people after it is no longer commercially viable so we can try and fix it!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Tagit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2018 at 10:52am
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Check out the CRA2 TACC catch history on this link - https://fs.fish.govt.nz/Doc/24542/14-CRA_2017_FINAL.pdf.ashx

Lots of interesting things to look at but you can see that the CRA2 TACC has been mostly under-caught since 1990. Sometimes not by a lot, but sometimes by plenty. Then look at the other CRA graphs and you can see that when the TACC is obtainable it will mostly get fully caught each year. What you can also see is how slow MPI are to react when the TACC can't be caught.

Big thing though is that the CRA2 TACC was being caught or nearly caught over the past 10 years until 2015/16 where they didn't get close to the already reduced TACC. I guess that is what finally triggered MPI into a review which said the stock was more or less functionally extinct. So did the stock suddenly collapse in just a couple of years? Probably not! So how did our world leading fisheries management system not capture the massive stock decline from the commercial Catch Per Unit Effort calculations? Di they just choose to ignore it, or did they not get the 'accurate' raw data, or was it just left not analysed? Someone in that food chain should be answering some hard questions. 
If the Rec community are being hit with more catch restrictions because MPI and/or the commercial fleet have screwed up the management, why shouldn't we be able to hold someone responsible?
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote v8-coupe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2018 at 12:57pm
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Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

Check out the CRA2 TACC catch history on this link - https://fs.fish.govt.nz/Doc/24542/14-CRA_2017_FINAL.pdf.ashx

Lots of interesting things to look at but you can see that the CRA2 TACC has been mostly under-caught since 1990. Sometimes not by a lot, but sometimes by plenty. Then look at the other CRA graphs and you can see that when the TACC is obtainable it will mostly get fully caught each year. What you can also see is how slow MPI are to react when the TACC can't be caught.

Big thing though is that the CRA2 TACC was being caught or nearly caught over the past 10 years until 2015/16 where they didn't get close to the already reduced TACC. I guess that is what finally triggered MPI into a review which said the stock was more or less functionally extinct. So did the stock suddenly collapse in just a couple of years? Probably not! So how did our world leading fisheries management system not capture the massive stock decline from the commercial Catch Per Unit Effort calculations? Di they just choose to ignore it, or did they not get the 'accurate' raw data, or was it just left not analysed? Someone in that food chain should be answering some hard questions. 
If the Rec community are being hit with more catch restrictions because MPI and/or the commercial fleet have screwed up the management, why shouldn't we be able to hold someone responsible?




Ha ha ha Dave.
You should do a stand up routine.

"hold someone responsible"
   


"our world leading fisheries management system"
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Tagit Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2018 at 3:24pm
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I was being a little tongue in cheek I guess. I do find the whole thing incredibly frustrating though. Maybe having a minister of fisheries might improve things a bit, but not holding my breath.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Garry 23041 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 7:47am
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I think the last of "accountability" went out of style along with mullets and perms a while back.


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Marligator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Nov 2018 at 8:14am
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The only way we will ever see effective long term management of a fishery in NZ and the world is for that fishery to completely collapse and no longer become commercially viable. It is only at that point will sensible long term management be put in place. Note in the sea it is almost impossible to fish a species to extinction as they have so many places to hide where we can't see them, given time the population will recover again.
 
With respect to how the fisheries managers get it so wrong, you just need to look back at the Grand Banks of the US/Canada. My understanding from seeing a couple of documentaries on this was that the modelling being done on fish stocks was showing declines, but commercial catch was not declining much so they thought their modelling must be wrong so they started dreaming up "variables" to put into the model to "bring" stocks back up to the levels that must be there based on commercial catch, but what they were not factoring in was that the commercials were getting smarter and more efficient at catching and finding the few remaining fish that were left, until all of a sudden there were virtually no fish left and the fishery completely collapsed. Since then the fishery has been highly regulated and stocks are now rebuilding well.
 
I am sure the NZ fisheries managers have a glass half full mentality i.e. always have a optimistic approach, when in reality if managing a natural resource they should always have the glass half empty mentality i.e. precautionary approach.
 
Also I am sure you will find most of these fisheries scientists who are doing the modelling have massive egos who will never admit they are wrong no matter how bad things look and combining this with Senior Management in MPI and fishing companies with even bigger egos is a recipe for disaster.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote v8-coupe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Nov 2018 at 10:12am
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Originally posted by Marligator Marligator wrote:


The only way we will ever see effective long term management of a fishery in NZ and the world is for that fishery to completely collapse and no longer become commercially viable. It is only at that point will sensible long term management be put in place. Note in the sea it is almost impossible to fish a species to extinction as they have so many places to hide where we can't see them, given time the population will recover again.
 
With respect to how the fisheries managers get it so wrong, you just need to look back at the Grand Banks of the US/Canada. My understanding from seeing a couple of documentaries on this was that the modelling being done on fish stocks was showing declines, but commercial catch was not declining much so they thought their modelling must be wrong so they started dreaming up "variables" to put into the model to "bring" stocks back up to the levels that must be there based on commercial catch, but what they were not factoring in was that the commercials were getting smarter and more efficient at catching and finding the few remaining fish that were left, until all of a sudden there were virtually no fish left and the fishery completely collapsed. Since then the fishery has been highly regulated and stocks are now rebuilding well.
 
I am sure the NZ fisheries managers have a glass half full mentality i.e. always have a optimistic approach, when in reality if managing a natural resource they should always have the glass half empty mentality i.e. precautionary approach.
 
Also I am sure you will find most of these fisheries scientists who are doing the modelling have massive egos who will never admit they are wrong no matter how bad things look and combining this with Senior Management in MPI and fishing companies with even bigger egos is a recipe for disaster.



Ah yes!
Computer modelling.
The modern panacea and answer to all the worlds problems and everything else.
Brings to mind an old expression: - "guano in, guano out".
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