OYSTER BED “PIRATING”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29739, 5 February 1962, Page 14

OYSTER BED “PIRATING”

League’s Fears Dismissed

(N.Z. Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, Feb. 4.

“It’s about time the Southland Progress League belted up and stopped poking its nose into things it knows nothing about and things that are not its business,” a Bluff oysterman, Mr J. Dixon, said when asked to comment on the league’s expressed fears that foreign trawlers might sneak into Foveaux Strait and “pirate" oysters. As far as he knew, said Mr Dixon, the gear carried by Japanese trawlers would be unsuitable for dredging oysters. In any case, trawlers of the size operated by the Japanese would find themselves “in a spot of bother” in many parts of Foveaux Strait, especially at night. Furthermore. said Mr Dixon, the only way to take oysters back to Japan from New Zealand would be to can them. They would not keep in the shell and were most unsatisfactory when frozen Unless the Japanese had a mother ship filled with canning equipment, dredging oysters would be of no worth to them commercially.

Another oyster fisherman commented: “If some of those Jap trawlers came into Foveaux Strait near the oyster beds, we would be giving up oystering and taking up salvage work."

Power-Cyelbt Hart.—When his power-cycle and a car collided at the corner of Clarence street and Blenheim road about 5.50 p.m. on Saturday, Mr Ralph Lockwood, of 173 Jerrold street, suffered minor head injuries. He was treated at the Christchurch Hospital and sent home.