Government erosion of recreational marine fishing

In the January 2022 issue of The Fishing Paper and Hunting News, Laurie Stevenson rightly noted two issues that impact on marine recreational fishing: restrictions on netting and more recently proposed changes to bag limits (p.26). Unfortunately, Mr Stevenson incorrectly asserted that Fish Mainland had been silent on these issues.

Since 2020, Fish Mainland has been outspoken on the set net ban in Golden and Tasman Bays in particular. Regrettably, ongoing correspondence with Minister Parker and his officials has remained unfruitful.

In the July and September 2021 issues of The Fishing Paper and Hunting News, Fish Mainland stated the core of the problem, which was a lack of evidence to support the set net ban in these Bays.

In fact, the Government document titled, Protecting Hector’s and Maui Dolphins: Supporting Information and Rationale, makes clear that in Golden and Tasman Bays:

1) Hector’s dolphin abundance remains uncertain,

2) There is limited and highly uncertain information about whether there is a subpopulation, and

3) The overlap of dolphin density with set nets and, therefore risk, is much less certain than elsewhere due to the very low densities of dolphins.

In addition, there was no information in these documents about mitigating risk by extending the ban into the Bays’ estuaries, rivers, lagoons and inlets.

This dearth of information meant that the risk management options proposed to Ministers were based on observations, but none appear to pertain to recreational fishing in the Bays or inland waterways.

Fish Mainland fully supported applying the ban where netting posed a risk to dolphins. But the Government should not have banned netting where there was no risk.

With the support of local set netters, Fish Mainland is preparing a complaint with the Parliamentary Regulations Review Committee regarding the Fisheries (Hector’s and Maui) Amendment Regulations 2020.

In the December 2021 issue of The Fishing Paper and Hunting News, and in its submission to Fisheries New Zealand (MPI), Fish Mainland responded to the Government’s proposed actions to address some unethical fishers having taken excessive amounts of North Island unprotected finfish species that were vulnerable to localised depletion.

But Fisheries New Zealand did not stop with the obvious solution, which was to propose daily bag limits for individual unprotected species. Instead, they proposed a regulatory amendment ‘so that a [regional] combined daily bag limit applies to all species unless specifically excluded.’

In short, the primary proposal was to either add the unprotected species to an existing regional combined daily bag limit, or worse yet (Fisheries New Zealand’s preference) expand the combined limits to also include those species that already have individual limits.

The secondary proposal included retaining the regional combined daily limits or reducing those limits now at 30 fish per day to 20 fish solely for the purpose of ‘nationwide consistency.’

The result of these one-size-fits-all proposals would reduce the daily quantum of fish that fishers can lawfully take and therefore, erode their current level of access to fisheries resources.

Fish Mainland asserted that there is no evidential base to support altering the combined limits to solve the problem. Accordingly, the current regional combined daily bag limits should remain intact with no other species added to the combined limits.

Furthermore, if there was a problem, it should be mitigated with an individual species limit, such has been done with blue cod and most other species important to South Island recreational fishers.

If future changes may be needed, Fish Mainland urged Fisheries New Zealand to first listen to what South Island fishers have to say regarding local knowledge and the feasibility of options to solve the problem.

This article is also available on The Fishing Paper and Hunting News’ February 2022 issue 197. View Original Article