Searching For Bass

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31016, 23 March 1966, Page 1

Searching For Bass

Scientists from the freshwater fisheries laboratory of the Marine Department probed Lake Bryndwr yesterday for large-mouth bass the American game-fish which is said to have been introduced illegally near Christchurch two years ago.

They used nets in the middle of the lake and peered into the shallows around the edge.

Mr M. Burnett, the laboratory’s senior scientific officer, said the department still had not been told which lakes were meant to have been stocked with bass, but Lake Bryndwr was one which seemed to fit the vague description. Mr Burnett said that Lake Ellesmere, also “not so far from the Cathedral City,” was too large to be readily investigated for signs of bass. However, the department’s officers would be looking at other lakes. Mr P. J. Burstall, conserva-

tor of wildlife in Rotorua, disagrees with a Christchurch biologist who thinks bass would be unlikely to survive a winter in South Island lakes. Mr Burstall said in Rotorua that bass survived in some areas of North America where the water froze over during the winter.

He said it was highly unlikely that the bass could have been brought into the country in the ova or fry stages and survived. They would have had to be finger-, lings, two or three inches long, to stand a chance, he said.