Hauraki Gulf reservations

A letter in last month’s ‘Save our Gulf’ by Mark and Debbie Hampson, struck a chord with me.

New Zealand,

Boating

As Auckland boaters with 50 years’ experience sailing and fishing in the Hauraki Gulf, the Hampsons’ letter is a plea for all of us to take more care, exercise more personal responsibility, and to be more proactive in protecting the Hauraki Gulf. The couple is involved in a proposal for a small inner Gulf marine reserve, which will encompass an area of shallow reef near Waiheke Island. This advocacy was probably the catalyst for the letter, but the changes they have observed in the Hauraki Gulf in their lifetime should catch our attention, nonetheless.

The Hauraki Gulf has changed in 50 years, markedly in the last century, but it can be hard to quantify by how much or in what ways. Depending on your starting point and whether your benchmark is based on anecdotal evidence (memory) or more scientific statistical evidence, the degree of observed change varies a great deal.

For instance, there is no doubt there are fewer snapper (and other fish) present in the Gulf than there were 100 years ago (perhaps as much as 80% less, according to some estimates). That assumption is based largely on historical accounts and photographic evidence – 80-year-old pictures of charter fishing boats and private yachts with rails and rigging festooned with snapper, hapuku, kingfish and sharks would suggest the fishing was pretty good back then! You can’t catch hapuku anywhere near Auckland these days.

But go back 30-some years, when I first started small boat