Advice On Fish Industry Policy

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30822, 6 August 1965, Page 7

Advice On Fish Industry Policy

(A’ew Zealand Press Association)

TAURANGA, August 5. In formulating a policy to assist the de* velopment of the fishing industry, the Government must direct its attention to the tapping of known resources, and not waste time with species of which little was known, said Mr P. H. Bromiley, today. He has just returned from a four-month study tour of the United States fishing industry.

No amount of research into gear technology or harvesting techniques was going to catch fish that were not there, he said. If the industry was to gather real momentum it should be centred on the purse-seining of trevalli and kahawai, two species which were plentiful but which to date were virtually untapped. New Zealand should be establishing suitable processing methods for the two varieties, so that the new resource could be developed. There were signs that the popular snapper and tarakihi population was being depleted. The chances of New Zealand developing an economic tuna industry whether on a coastal or high seas basis, were quite remote. “In the United States leading oceanographers and authorities on tuna movements in the Pacific made it clear that a fully-fledged tuna industry

would not be successful here,” said Mr Bromiley. The annual incidence of ocean currents which brought tuna to New Zealand waters was too critical at New Zealand’s latitude, and fluctuated several hundred miles because of the climatic variations from season to season. Tuna fishing would only be economically practical if done in conjunction with a trevalli and kahawai purse-seining industry, where they could be harvested when they were there. “On this basis tuna fishing would only mean putting cream on the pudding,” he said. It would not be practical to base an industry on the species.

As well as concentrating on the development of the trevalli and kahawai fishing, the Government should assist with a higher degree of development in the traditional trawling industry which was basically sound.