Possibilities In Oyster Production

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30038, 24 January 1963, Page 14

Possibilities In Oyster Production

(New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, January 23. The oyster survey indicated much higher production to be possible in Foveaux Strait than the Minister of Marine (Mr Gerard) had thought likely.

Mr Gerard said tonight that the indicated production figure was in the vicinity of 170,000 sacks a season. Such production would be about 50,000 sacks above the peak season to date and more than 70,000 sacks above the average season yield.

Mr Gerard was reluctant to make statements at this stage in view of a meeting it is proposed to hold in Invercargill next week to discuss the survey, the significance of which would be explained by the director of fisheries research for the Marine Department, Mr E. R. Allen.

Feans were expressed today among some merchants and fishermen that the effect of the Government’s oyster fishing decision more licences and greeter production —would be still costlier oysters or depletion of the beds.

Among some was a thought that a quota system would penalise the most efficient oysterman. It was thought that if individual catches

were not as great as previously, higher payment might be sought and they might in tarn be reflected in oyster prices.

On the other hand, greatly increased production could not, they held, be withstood by the beds, which had to be handled like any farms. Against much higher production they cited overfishing as tihe ruin of the Nuggets flatfish ground, the Palliser Bay crayfish and Ruapuka Island crayfish. They thought 10 craft was the optimum number and that an increase in the present fleet of 12, coupled with greater production, would devalue the beds within two years. Only one application for any oyster fishing Licence is known—that of Bluff fisherman, Mr A. A. Boyd, who is spending £9OOO outfitting his boat, Marjorie Maude. Other fishermen have said they are likely to apply.