How to keep the Snares rat-free

Press, 13 April 1984, Page 22

How to keep the Snares rat-free

No issue bedevils the conservation movement more at present than that of the Snares Islands. Whatever ideals it may advance, the conservation movement keeps finding that in the end it is faced with unpalatable choices. It is an issue conservationists can lose but not one they can win. The values of the Snares are clear — which is more than can be said for the weather. They are cold, lashed by gales and rain storms for most of the year, battered by mountainous seas, and without beaches for safe landings. They are also the home of millions of nesting seabirds, and four rare and endangered species of bird found nowhere else. More important, they must be one of the few island groups in the world without predators — natural or introduced — and particularly notable among the sub-Antarctic islands for being free of rats. The islands would probably be totally safe from rat infestation were it not for one other aspect about them — their adjacent seas contain crayfish. This makes the group attractive to crayfishermen, and thus vulnerable to rats escaping from fishing boats. Conservationists would willingly ban all fishing and mooring within 12 nautical miles of the islands, but they know, too, that the islands’ isolation, without human habitation, makes it impossible to police any such restriction. As complete security cannot be achieved, conservationists have to seek ways to maximise security. They do so knowing only too well that this falls far short of complete security, and that if in agreeing to “maximum” security a pregnant female rat gets ashore, then they will have been a party to the devastation of the Snares’ wildlife. The argument has dragged on and on. The National Parks and Reserves Authority has colluded to the point of agreeing to mooring licences on the Snares. The authority does not control fishing permits (they are in the hands of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) and more have been allowed to fish off the Snares than moor there. The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Mr Maclntyre, has agreed to ban all fishing within 12 miles of the Snares by those who do not hold mooring permits. However, fishermen have the right to seek exemption from this ban. The Ministry itself does not know the

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extent of the fishery or how much catch it can sustain, and the authority has asked it to find out. In its management plan for the Snares, the authority set as its goal the reduction of permits to moor. It agreed to six permits this past summer, with the rider that these would lapse if not used. In the event, only two permit holders actually used on-shore mooring on the Snares, but two other boats with on-shore permits, which did not in the event use them, went to the Snares and developed a point of off-shore mooring. The authority was asked by the owner of the two off-shore mooring boats for a renewal of the on-shore permits. The owner considered he should not lose his on-shore mooring rights just because he had used his initiative and developed offshore mooring. He supported his case by the greater safety in time of storm gained by on-shore mooring. The authority had to agree with him, so the number of permits, having seemed to fall from six to two, has gone back up to four for the 1984-85 season. Co-operating with responsible fishermen on the Snares has seemed to the authority to be the best option open to it, given the fact that a ban would be pointless. The authority was cheered slightly by reports that crayfish catches from the Snares might be falling off, which would reduce even fur-

OLIVER RIDDELL

ther the number of boats wanting to go there. In the meantime, it is discussing with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Transport how to reduce the likelihood of boats going to the Snares carrying and liberating rats. As well as seeking the cooperation of the boat owners, it is suggesting special moorings for Snares-bound boats before they leave Pegasus Bay on Stewart Island. These moorings would be well off the coast or jetty, to reduce the likelihood of rats swimming from shore on to the boats. Some people want rat traps with baits set up near where the Snaresbound boats are moored in Pegasus Bay, to attract rats away from the boats. The Government is not keen to restrict the commercial crayfishing opportunities of Southland and Stewart Island-based fishermen. It would take a mighty political effort from the conservation movement to change the Government’s attitude, an effort which would deflect attention from other very important conservation issues, and which might still fail. If crayfishing were banned, the fear is that it would be done illegally at the Snares by uncooperative and antagonistic fishermen. That would greatly increase the chance of a rat getting on the Snares. However, recent threats to deliberately liberate a rat on the Snares have since been withdrawn by the fishermen.