Big Russian fishing fleet gathers in Pegasus Bay

Press, 22 April 1977, Page 1

Big Russian fishing fleet gathers in Pegasus Bay

A big Russian fishing fleet has gathered in Pegasus Bay since severe southerly storms began lashing the New Zealand east coast earlier this week.

The lights of 11 vessels at anchor could be seen clearly from Sumner early yesterday morning, and at midday the Russian supply tug Besstrashniy sought permission to anchor within the three-mile territorial limit until the worst of the southerlies had passed. The Besstrashniy has been used in recent months to ferry supplies from Dunedin to the offshore fleet. For a number of years, the Russians have used the Pegasus Bay anchorage, about 12 miles off the Canterbury coast, to ride out rough weather and as a rendezvous for transferring supplies.

The captain of the fisheries patrol launch H.M.N.Z.S. Taupo (Lieu-tenant-Commander M. Franklin) confirmed vesterday that the Russians had been congregating in large numbers in Pegasus Bay this week — more than he had seen previously, he said.

The Russians might be trying to make their presence felt on the New’ Zealand coast before the implementation of a 200-mile economic zone, he said. But while the foreign ships gather off Canterbury, the Taupo remains port-bound because of engine trouble. She was well out into Pegasus Bav, and heading north, on Wednesday vhen water was found seening into her engine oil, and so she returned to Lyttelton and spent vesterday undergoing repairs.

She is expected to go out to sea again at 7 a.m. today. Russian overtures for joint fishing-research ventures are being regarded with suspicion bv officials of the Ministry of Fisheries reports the Press Association from Wellington. Soviet officials complained through the Novosti press agency this week that approaches to New

Zealand inviting this country to take part in “an extensive fishing research programme in the South Pacific” have met with no response.

But a Ministry of Fisheries source said yesterday the Soviet Union had never proposed anything of substance.

“Their research proposals have only been in general terms,” he said. “They have never got down to anything like a detailed proposition.” Russia’s fishing fleet working in the South Pacific and more particularly round New Zealand was known to be collecting vast amounts of data, but little of this had been made available to New Zealand. Virtually the only fisheries information made available by the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries consisted primarily of broad statistics readilv available from United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisa-

tion publications and similar documents.

The latest figures provided by the Soviet Union about its catch, in New Zealand waters were for 1975, and had been received here only a little before their publication in the F.A.O. handbook, the source said. The Japanese on the other hand had already provided New Zealand with a detailed breakdown of their 1976 catch in this area.

Officials have contrasted the Soviet attitude with that of the Japanese. “The Japanese have played it pretty much straight down the line with us," the source said. “We have had observers on hoard their vessels, and have been freely given informition which is very valuable to New Zealand and of benefit to our plans for expanding our domestic fishing industry.”

When the Soviet Union was prepared to provide

similar facilities, joint research could begin in earnest.