Fisherman admits to illegal practices

A fishing company director says failure to report the deaths of seabirds and non-quota fish species is ‘‘commonplace’’ within the industry.

The statements, contained in an Employment Relation Authority (ERA) determination, have come to light two days after Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said scrapping the rollout of on-board monitoring cameras may be a possibility.

Andrew Robson, who runs Impulse Fishing Co. Ltd., operating from Neils Beach in South Westland, also admitted failing to report approximately 20 accidental seabird deaths a year between July 2011 and August 2014.

Forest & Bird spokesman Geoff Keey said the admission by a fishing company director that his company did not report bycatch, and his claim this was a widespread practice, was exactly why cameras were needed on boats.

‘‘The director’s allegation of widespread illegal non-reporting of bycatch is backed up by the figures on penguin bycatch in the set net fishery, which showed almost all reported penguin bycatch was on the 3 per cent of the fishery that has Government observers.’’

Keey said he had asked the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to investigate Robson’s admission of failing to report seabird deaths – a crime under the Fisheries Act.

‘‘The Government has very few observers on boats so they rely on the fishing industry to be honest.

‘‘Only a few weeks ago. Forest & Bird revealed the fishing industry had written to MPI to try and hide the information from fishing boats from public scrutiny. Rightly, the minister of fisheries rejected this as an affront to public transparency. It would be even worse if information about the environmental impact of fishing wasn’t collected in the first place.’’

The ERA dispute was between Vincent Smith, an ex-skipper on Robson’s boat, Impulse II, who took out a personal grievance after being fired from the company. Robson’s father, Geoff Robson, said Smith was fired after being accused of cruelty towards seabirds.

The ERA report determined there was a failure to appropriately deal with the Impulse crew’s obligations towards seabirds, but the ‘‘culture was not entirely created or encouraged by Smith’’.

The determination said Robson was ‘‘candid in admitting that although he was aware that their deaths had to be reported, no seabird deaths were reported at all during the time Mr Smith worked for Impulse, no matter whether he or Mr Smith was the skipper’’.

One of the instances of cruelty alleged in the report involved one of the crew deliberately hitting a bird with a gaffe.

Robson could not be reached for comment, but his father said he disagreed with his son’s statements about the industry’s practices.

On Thursday, it was revealed cameras had a massive effect on Australian fishers’ reporting of discarding and bycatch.

A study by the Australian Ministry of Agriculture showed reporting of captured sea mammals and birds was nearly eight times higher on longline fishing ships after monitoring cameras were installed. The amount of discarded fishing catch declared also saw large jumps.

The wider-robson family operates three other fishingrelated companies.