I know this may not be a popular topic, but given all the doom and gloom regarding our fisheries management I feel it is only fair that we celebrate and commend those who helped rebuild a fishery from the verge of collapse to the point where they can consider the economical management of that fishery. Commercial cray season starts down here in about 3 weeks.

As someone who actually fishes in this area I can vouch the diving for crayfish has never been so good (managed to get our rec limits the last couple of trips out).

There are several obvious factors that are quite unique to this area. The remoteness of Fiordland and Stewart Island give them natural protection from poaching, the weather and ocean conditions also lower the intensity of the fishing (ie, they cant fish 14 hours a day 7 days a week), and we also dont have the population fishing this area across all fishing sectors as we do elsewhere in the country. 

The main factor allowing the rebuild of the crayfish down here is the market want the smaller crayfish allowing the fishermen to throw back the large breeding crays (high biological value, low economical value).

So hats off to New Zealands largest crayfishing fleet, and heres hoping they can expand these learnings across the rest of the country. 

How much is a tonne of Crayfish quota in Fiordland/Stewart Island/Southland area?

I applaud the result that has been achieved in the Southern crayfish fishery, but we need to be much better than that as we try to rebuild all the other massively depleted stocks. Waiting till each stock is on the verge of extinction is a bloody silly way to go about things, even for the people fishing it commercially.