Fishermen at Motunau in crayfishing dispute

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32971, 18 July 1972, Page 13

Fishermen at Motunau in crayfishing dispute

Rival fishermen are said to be on the brink of open hostility over who should have the right to catch crayfish at Motunau, about 40 miles north of Christchurch. Twelve Motunau fishing boats and five trawlers from Lyttelton are involved in the dispute.

The chairman of the Motunau Fishermen’s Association (Mr R- Turner) said on Friday that extremists

among the rival fishermen had already “got stuck into one another’s gear.” They were interfering with one another’s traps and cutting the surface floats from trap lines.

Mr Turner said he was concerned about the possibility of the situation worsening. Motunau fishermen, he said, regarded the crayfish ground in the area as their territory, but five large trawlers from Lyttelton had moved in to help themselves. "We sympathise with the Lyttelton boys,” Mr Turner said. "They have the same problems as we do, with no wet fish about but we don’t expect them to invade our territory. “INTRUSION” “We rely on what few crayfish we can catch to tide us over until the better weather returns, and the fish with it,” said Mr Turner. "We have to fight this intrusion. We don’t have the same range as the big trawlers, and cannot go out as far as they can. Why should they come and knock off our crayfish?” The riyal fleets are working a small bed of crayfish which extends 10 miles north and south of Motunau. The Motunau fishermen say that the Lyttelton boats are working on top of the crayfish grounds. The “intruders” are experts at catching the crayfish after their experiences at the Chatham Islands. Mr Turner said there were not enough crayfish for -veryone. Doubling the number of craypots did not mean double the catch. He believed the present onslaught on the crayfish beds would help to eliminate them altogether. GOVT CRITICISED It was unfortunate, he said, that the Government seemed disinterested in formulating rules for catching fish or giving any encouragement to the fishermen. The present situation at Motunau, where about 17 boats worth $200,000 were fighting over the fishing, was the result of a negative approach to the

fishing industry by the Government.

Mr Turner suggested that a subsidy be considered to cover the cost of maintaining big trawlers in lean times. "This might sound like the same kind of leaching on the public purse that one other industry is noted for, but all we have ever got are restrictions and no protection of any sort.”

He was far from happy with the high retail price of fish, Mr Turner said, and did not think the public would be sympathetic to the payment of a subsidy to fishermen while this was the case. Retail fish prices meant nothing to the pockets of fishermen. Both they and the

wholesale merchants agreed that the retailer got the biggest mark-up on fish. In some cases, the retail price was 200 per cent higher than the wholesale cost price.

“COMPLETE COLLAPSE” Unless immediate attention was given to research, the potential of fishing, and the regulation of boats, the industry as a whole would be in danger of complete collapse. “At present, there are no conservation measures at all,” Mr Turner said. “We find non-professional fishermen swooping into the fishing grounds and plundering anything they can get, including under-size and female crayfish.”