Maomao haul sparks national review
A Coromandel community’s anger over the mass taking of an unprotected fish species has led to a nationwide review on finfish daily catch limits.
Tairua residents rallied together, calling on the Government to rethink catchment limits after reports of a large-scale taking of pink maomao.
A Fisheries New Zealand investigation saw the fishermen not prosecuted, but the uproar from the community has had a major sway in the agency’s decision to revisit its regulations, MPI says.
The Amateur Regulations amendment, if sanctioned, would apply a daily bag limit to all finfish species including ones unprotected such as the pink maomao.
Ngati Hei kaumatua Joe Davis told the review is a step in the right direction for protecting species unknowingly under threat due to outdated regulations.
‘‘We know all our fish species like more species around the world will be heading towards extinction if we don’t manage it better than what we are doing,’’ Davis said.
The call for change began in June when a video, shot by documentary filmmaker Mike Bhana, circulated social media showing a large chilly bin on a boat full of the longfin perch, or mata.
Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker told he had seen the video that had been posted online, ‘‘and on the face of it, it looks greedy’’.
This led to Tairua residents blocking access to their main wharf in protest. A petition then circulated online where more than 7100 signatures were received calling for recreational limits to be imposed on pink maomao by the Minister.
While on the face of the overfishing seemed like an isolated incident, Davis said local charter operators remember taking that same group of people out to many of the locations where pink maomao could be found off the coast of Tairua months before.
They got the ‘‘intel’’ and bought their own boats and began to ‘‘run wild and free’’.
Prior to the review, he said the community was concerned that without protection, the pink maomao would become a ‘‘discovered market’’.
They have been on high alert ever since, he said.
The public has until November 18 to make a submission on the Amateur Regulations amendment.
The three proposed options include: retaining the current daily bag limit, adding all finfish species currently unprotected to the daily bag limit, or including all finfish species, including those with additional individual species limits, in the combined daily bag limit.
The public can also decide whether the existing combined daily bag limit caps should cover all five recreational fishing areas or whether it should be standardised across the country, but exclude small fish species generally taken as bait with a combined daily bag limit of 50 for those fish.
‘‘We know that some finfish species that don’t have a daily bag limit have become more popular, such as the pink maomao,’’ Fisheries Compliance national manager Niamh Murphy said. ‘‘To address this, Fisheries New Zealand is consulting on changes to the recreational bag limits for all finfish.