Fish Industry Prospect

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30454, 30 May 1964, Page 3

Fish Industry Prospect

(N.Z. Press Association)

NELSON, May 29.

The Nelson Commercial Fishermen’s Association is convinced that an industry based on less popular varieties of fish could be much more substantial than the present industry. The president (Mr R. L. Brown) said today that at times hundreds of cases of fish not popular with the New Zealand public were dumped at sea.

“The catch could be much larger, of course, if we had a canning industry and markets overseas,” he said. Mr Brown said even the ex-

isting fleet could bring in huge catches of unpopular species if the price was economical. “We would deliberately fish for them.” One boat could dump 100 case of trevalli a day in the season. If, however, the boat trawled at a slower speed it would only catch a few cases as trevalli were a fast-moving fish.

“They are a good quality fish, but there is no market here for them,” Mr Brown said.

His association was keen to see a cannery established here. “When that comes about we can certainly talk in hundreds of tons of fish, because they are available.”

Mr Brown said that the Rumanian Government’s processing vessel Constanta was back in Tasman Bay after discharging her last catch, possibly in Australia. The Constanta, not affected by New Zealand regulations, was no doubt using mesh net sizes much smaller than local fishermen were permitted. “The vessel must be affecting our catches, as she is working day and night, but we cannot say to what extent,” he said.