Dairy’s impact – a whitebaiter’s tale

My whitebaiting experience started more than 30 years ago on the Aparima river, where I helped my father build one of the first stands near the Riverton cemetery.

As the years flowed past, so did dead sheep and cattle, large chainsawed tree trunks, and much baleage; a lot of this debris entangled itself among the stands and destroyed them, much to the chagrin of the owners.

As dairying became the flavour of farming and more land adjacent to the river was converted, fewer unfavourable sights flowed down to end up in Davy Jones’ Locker. I applaud the efforts of the dairy farmers as they have tidied their fences and removed much of the noxious weed that was quite prevalent. The land has seen greater production, which has benefitted most Kiwis and a lot of immigrants. They have come, worked very hard and earned an income scarcely able to be dreamed of in their country of birth.

Sure, there has been the occasional effluent spill in the area, but judging by the abundance of whitebait now been caught, I would suggest the habitat may have benefitted from that. Get a life, Minister.

While on the subject: a thing that tickles my fancy; the hue and cry about another whitebait river, the Waihopai, passing through Invercargill, apparently polluted. If it is, then the local authority concerned should have closed the river from the taking of food for human consumption. I wonder if the city’s mayor and the much-concerned kaumatua may have sampled some of the local delicacy after the recent effluent spill, which cost the local ratepayers a lot of unnecessary money?

It would certainly explain much of their diction.

Geoffrey M Jukes