Japanese crab ships discounted

Press, 31 May 1977, Page 11

Japanese crab ships discounted

Wellington reporter Suggestions of a significant Japanese presence around the Auckland Islands to catch and process crabs have been discounted by the Fisheries Management Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It had been suggested that a Japanese company was interested in sending mother ships to New Zealand to catch and process crabs, because it needed unseasonal employment for fishing boats unable to work through the northern winter. But the Director of the Fisheries Management Division (Mr B. T. Cunningham) said that Japanese vessels had fished for crab in the general area of the Auckland Islands before, using only a few vessels and with only limited success. The area around the Auckland Islands was the home of the queen crab, which should not be confused with the bigger and meatier king crab of the northern Pacific. The num-

bers of queen crabs was small. “This area will be within the intended 200-mile economic management zone, so New Zealand will have authority over any fishing there,” Mr Cunningham said. “Any Japanese activity would be under licence and New Zealand would control the level of exploitation.” The Ministry had done research on crab resources there some years ago and had the data on which to base any decisions on permissable levels of exploitation. "We are very interested in any fishing near this area. And it will be easier to police once we have a 200-mile zone and are licensing foreign fishermen,” he said. “These licences will state conditions under which they can fish and, to guarantee the continuity of their licences, the licence-holders will observe any interlopers. We will also have other ways of telling if there are any unlicenced vessels in the region.”