Tagit wrote:
It sickens me to think how a once fabulous recreational fishery has been totally destroyed and no one can be held accountable for it. A while back I wrote to the Minister of fisheries querying a public statement they made about the state of the Pacific Yellowfin stock. The response was something along the lines that they don't see any issue with the current YFT stocks in the South Pacific and the current level of commercial take. I asked how that fits with the fact that from a recreational point of view YFT are effectively extinct in NZ waters. They didn't respond to that bit!! We went from abundance to virtual extinction in NZ waters in ~20 years of commercial rape. It is gutting that my son will never see stuff like is shown in that video, and that the next NZ YFT I catch will probably be my last, unless of course I caught my last one in 2005 when we last ran into a patch of them. I haven't seen one in the water since! |
It's even more ironic that in the last two years of the Minister's address to the NZ Sport fish council's AGM
HE has raised the issue of declining Yellowfin. Whilst nothing had been said about the issue by the delegates or NZSFC management up to that point.
Last year I pointed out to him that economies of the towns dotted along the North Island East coast are being seriously impacted by the lack of yellowfin in our waters. And pointed out the fact that in the previous 2 years of the Whakatane Tuna tournament, the number of yellowfin caught and weighed at that tournament could be counted on one hand. His response was to turn to John Holdsworth and ask "do we have thta data" and John said yes you do.
My question to the minister, was what additional tools do they have to put pressure on the central pacific fishers to reduce their catch. His response was that he would get back to us, I've still not seen a response.
As far as the comment about the dissapperance of SBFT and "let's not forget Kahawai". PLease don't take this personally, but it's exactly that noise from the Rec fishing sector that confuses the ministry about what we really want. Let's not forget that anybody targetting SBFT can still catch as many as they want. It's just that where they live is very remote. Sure they're incdecline and there's lower numbers than ever before. But compared to Yellowfin they shouldn't be at the top of our list.
As far as Kahawai are concerned, we always could and still can catch more than we want. It some places they're still regarded as a pestilent by catch to what we really want.
And yet our representative organisations (NZSFC and Rec fishing council among others) continue to argue about whether we need an overarching body and who has the biggest dick! These people are charged with the responsibility to represent us so we need to tell them what we really want.
It's time we started putting heavy pressure on these organisations and the government to stop farting around with beraucratic issue and focus on what's REALLY wrong.
Yellowfin would be a great place to start...... Do I hear any Amen's?