As the whitebait season kicks off, what does it mean for the fish?
Around New Zealand nets are being dusted off, stands cleared and fritters fried as the season for one of the country’s prime delicacies gets under way. Elijah Hill reports.
AROUND New Zealand nets are being dusted off, stands cleared and fritters fried as the whitebait season – a cornerstone of many Kiwis’ lives – gets under way.
But beneath the chest-high waders, early morning starts, and multi-generational fishing spots, there’s a looming question – just how much is it affecting the fish species involved?
Anecdotal evidence is spotty. Many say the fish aren’t as plentiful as they once were back when grandma put whitebait on the veggie garden to help it grow, or fed excess fish to chooks; other whitebaiters reported that the 2021 season was their best ever.
Department of Conservation (DOC) whitebait fishery manager Nick Moody says the challenge of understanding whitebait is that their movements at sea are still poorly studied, and they don’t swim up the same rivers they were born in.
Whitebait are the young of six fish species, four of which are classed as declining or threatened.
The fish hatch in freshwater, get washed out into the ocean, and return months later as what’s known as whitebait.
‘‘We count the adults as they’re large, so they’re easier to catch and count, and it’s them that breed the next generation. So it’s their number that’s the key number,’’ Moody says.
This year the whitebait season runs from September 1 to October 30, making it six weeks shorter than previous seasons, while the Chatham Islands have a season of December 1 until the last day of February.
DOC is also holding its firstever nationwide whitebaiter count to gather more data on the fishery, says Moody. ‘‘People will see rangers on riverbanks counting the number of fishers and the kind of nets they’re using; also some aerial surveys from planes.’’
Despite tightened regulations over the past two years the Taranaki whitebait hotspots of Mo¯ kau and Awakino were buzzing at the start of the season.
Brothers Errol and Geoff Malcom had travelled to Awakino from Te Awamutu the night before to get their stand ready. The magic of their whitebait stand is that it’s 54 steps from the front door of the bach and 187 steps to the back door of the pub, where fishing stories abound. Errol describes a tornado lifting the roof off a nearby house and depositing it in the river.
‘‘When they were trying to drag the roof out of the water, we did some of our best whitebaiting ever. One bloke reckoned the tornado picked a bunch of whitebait up out of the river and put them on the shore.’’
While asking prices for whitebait stands have reached $60,000 in recent years, it’s not all about the location or gear. Whitebaiter Nichaela Phillips says her ‘‘manky old net’’ could be part of the secret of her whitebaiting ability. ‘‘I think it’s got flavour’’.
In Mo¯ kau, ‘‘no vacancy’’ signs abound, boat trailers crowd the launch-site, and plenty of hungry punters stop by the Whitebait
Inn, where owner Jodie Death says the start of the season has been ‘‘just crazy’’.
She buys more than a tonne of the ‘‘white gold’’ every year – importing some from the South Island as the fish they receive from the Mo¯ kau River can’t keep up with demand.
In recent years, there have been attempts to create a more sustainable source of the delicacy, with Warkworth-based Manā ki Whitebait becoming the world’s first sustainable
producer.
However, an attempt to develop a whitebait farm on the West Coast capable of producing up to 100 tonnes of whitebait per annum fell apart this year.
Some believe greater controls are needed until there’s a better understanding of the impact it has.
Forest & Bird freshwater advocate Tom Kay says the environmental advocacy group has been pushing ‘‘really hard’’ for three essential elements of a managed fishery: a licensing system, a catch limit, and some sort of data collection.
There are many other issues affecting whitebait populations, such as habitat destruction, piping of streams, urban development, and water quality, as well as pressures from climate change.
But fishing for whitebait – particularly commercially – adds pressure, Kay says.
‘‘And while it might not be the biggest pressure, it’s one that we can kind of correct pretty quickly or pretty easily. You can almost overnight say actually we’re going to change the rules or we’re going to put a limit, or you’re going to have to have a licence.’’
While modelling has suggested some whitebait species may be extinct by 2050, it’s hard to know exactly what state the fish are in, and the impact fishing has on them. Therefore, Kay says, it’s better to be making precautionary decisions now.
‘‘If it suddenly is a problem, and we realise we shouldn’t have been doing this for the last however many years, things would be pretty problematic.’’
‘While fishing might not be the biggest pressure, it’s one that we can kind of correct pretty quickly or pretty easily.’ TOM KAY, FOREST & BIRD FRESHWATER ADVOCATE