Poor squid catches worry Japanese

Press, 24 January 1984, Page 3

Poor squid catches worry Japanese

From

BRUCE ROSCOE

in Tokyo

The Japanese squid-fish-ing venture now under way in New Zealand waters is failing, according to Japanese squid industry reports.

One report blamed the failure in part on El Nino, the climatic phenomenon that is ruining some South Americas fishing grounds.

El Nino, which means “the little one,” or “Christmas child” (so named because it often occurs soon after Christmas), brings warm water lacking in nutrients. This severely depletes fish stocks. The extent of the Japanese squid failure is great. Catches by jiggers working off the north-west coast of the South Island up to the middle of this month have been down more than 50 per cent on the same time last year. Reports on the failure in two specialist Japanese fishing * industry newspapers

have not alluded to the likelihood that other species of value to New Zealand fishermen may similarly be endangered, though the possibility clearly exists. Finding almost no sizeable squid stocks off the northern west coast, many of the boats moved southward to waters off Westport where squid is usually plentiful until the end of January. But these waters, too, were barren. The boats then tried waters off Stewart Island where only ‘small schools of small-sized squid were found. The violation of territorial waters last week by two of the squid jiggers, the No. 1 Hide Maru and No. 15 Daikyo Maru, is believed by fishery experts in Tokyo to be a desperate search for squid.

Each boat has paid $NZ20,250 in advance to the' New Zealand Government forgone access rights — representing the fees that would be payable on 150 tonnes of squid at $135 a

tonne. However if a boat does not catch 150 tonnes of squid none of the money is returned. If it catches more, a further $135 a tonne is levied.

According to one newspaper report, the 92 licensed squid jiggers working in the zone had, by January 8, caught 3441 tonnes or an average of 37 tonnes a boat. By the same time last year, 88 boats had landed 7575 tonnes.

Mr Ken Ford, the senior fisheries officer in Christchurch, said he had no evidence of El Nino conditions on New Zealand coastlines. It was only the beginning of the four-mohth season for squid, he said. “We have heard that the season has had a poor start but don’t know why. It’s really too soon to tell,” Mr Ford said. A number of boats were fishing the most popular squid grounds off Beff, including Japanese, Russian, and charter boats.