Orange roughy find should benefit N.Z.

Press, 28 September 1984, Page 33

Orange roughy find should benefit N.Z.

NZPA Sydney Australian fish researchers have found more stocks of highly prized orange roughy which they say could help keep New Zealand exports in Australia at top prices. They say the find will keep markets open for New Zealand fish. The fish were found in a survey of Tasmania’s west coast, and another survey is to go out this summer to search the Great Australian Bight, near South Australia to see if there are more. But Mr Marc Wilson, head researcher for the Tasmanian Fisheries Development Authority, said has said that what had been found so far would not be enough to supply even the Australian market, let alone compete with New Zealand for the highly lucrative United States market. “With what we have found so far we are talking

of about 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of orange roughy a year, and I do not in my wildest dreams expect to see any exported,” he said. “The fish is selling well on the local market at the moment and what we have found will go part-way to supplying that,” he said. Orange roughy has been prized in Australia since New Zealand started supplying the fish a few years ago, but it has taken on almost gourmet, status as the price rocketed after the influence of the growing market in the United States. With the price and demand for the fish soaring in the United States, New Zealand has diverted supplies, cutting down what is available on this side of the Tasman and pushing the price up. Mr Wilson said the fish was now in the price range of the barramundi and snapper, and was in the elite bracket.

“We see the stocks we supply keeping the market going for imports from New Zealand,” he said. “You need continuity of supply or people forget, and if the price in the United States drops and New Zealand wants to start sending more fish back into Australia, the market will still be here. “What we are able to supply certainly will not bring the price down,” said Mr Wilson. While the fish has now been found on both the east and . west coasts of Tasmania, and off New South Wales, the biggest stocks are believed to be further south of Tasmania. “Whether we go for them depends on priorities and the money available,” he said. It will also depend on the fishermen developing the expertise to catch the deepwater fish which is found at more than twice the depth

they are used to. Mr Wilson said fishermen usually worked about 200 m and as far as 500 m down, but the orange roughy was found between 900 m and 1200 m, and to catch it required special equipment and techniques.

“We are new to these depths and we have been learning from. New Zealand how to go about it.” “At the moment it is just a secondary fishery for the few trawlers that are capable of taking it,” said Mr Wilson.

The significance of the findings of a survey last spring and published in the latest Australian Fisheries bulletin, is that the fish has been found in non-spawning schools. Until then the fish were only found in autumn and winter when they were Sling, but the latest gs show the potential for year-round fishing similar to New Zealand.