Oyster Farming May Begin This Year

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31941, 19 March 1969, Page 14

Oyster Farming May Begin This Year

(New Zealand Press Association)

year. The Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) said in Invercargill tonight that five applications had been received from Southland concerns for permits to farm Foveaux Strait oysters at the island. Permits for this type of oyster farming could now be issued and the applications would be processed by the harbours division of the Marine Department The Foveaux Strait oysters have not been commercially farmed previously. They are of a different genus from the rock oysters cultivated in the North Island.

The move to farm the oysters is a result of the decline of the heavily fished beds in the strait and of the promise, reaffirmed by Mr Scott tonight in an interview before he attended a closed meeting with industry representatives, that export permits for the shellfish would be considered when they were produced from farms. “As far as I’m concerned, Foveaux Strait oysters won’t be exported until farming operations begin,” he said. The first oysters taken from the south came from Port Adventure, at Stewart Island, in the 1860 s and when they were fished out operations switched to Port William and Halfmoon Bay at the island, where the beds were, In turn, dredged to near extinction. In 1906 the dredging industry moved out into the strait Within a few years all the dredgers were based on Bluff and at present all 22 boats in the oyster fleet work out of Bluff.

The industry will provide a big economic boost for Stew-

INVERCARGILL, March 18. Oyster fanning is likely to begin at Stewart Island this

art Island. At present it is an economic backwater, its main income coming from crayfishing, blue cod and a minor tourist industry. In one way, oysters have been “farmed” at the island for years, however. The survivors from the Port Adventure beds are kept by the islanders as their private oyster fishery and periodically the fishermen bring in small quantities of the shellfish with small hand dredgers.