Oyster fishing on time this season

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 29

Oyster fishing on time this season

PA Invercargill Oyster boats will begin fishing on time this season. An apparently happy agreement between oystermen and boat owners has cleared the way for the March 3 opening. The oystermen agreed to wage increases of 15.5 to 23 per cent, depending on the terms of the agreement, said the chairman of the Boat Owners’ Association, Mr Cliff Skeggs, from Dunedin. The oystermen are "pleased” with the terms, according to the union’s spokesman, Mr Dick Ryan. The offer was “above normal,” but the industry could afford to pay higher wages, he said. Mr Skeggs said the agreement was “both fair and reasonable.”

The oyster season is limited to six months to

preserve the limited resource. A contract dispute delayed the start of the 1985 season by more than twc months — although a few boats began earlier — and only nine of the 23 boats in the fleet were able to dredge a full quota of 115,000 sacks. Many oyster companies are still holding stocks oi unsold oysters from last season, according to Mr Skeggs. He denied that some boat owners did not intend to catch their full quotas in 1986 unless an export ban on Bluff oysters was lifted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr Skeggs said he was in favour of opening the resource for export, but his firm, Skeggs Foods Ltd, had no application on file to export oysters.