Salmon ‘right’ of fishermen

Press, 27 April 1987, Page 9

Salmon ‘right’ of fishermen

Salmon anglers will take a “gloves-off” approach to saving “their” resource if they gain no satisfaction by conventional means, says their national leader.

Mr Lyndsay Dell, president of the New Zealand Salmon Anglers’ Association, said that salmon were the right of recreational fishermen. He had statements from the Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, backing this claim.

If the Ministerial task force to investigate salmon by-catches by commercial trawlers did not achieve results, anglers would take a harder line to save the fish. The Minister had promised the association that a task force would be set up to look into commercial trawlers allegedly

target fishing for salmon at sea, and increased catches.

Mr Moyle gave the anglers the assurance at a meeting in Christchurch recently.

Mr Dell believed the meeting was the largest of anglers in New Zealand; more than 1400 attended.

He said anglers wanted only those directly associated with the impasse represented on the task force.

“We are not interested in having fish processors represented because they are not directly affected,” Mr Dell said. '■

Anglers had many options if satisfaction over by-catches was not achieved. “We are not tied down by statutes and we can take unorthodox action

swiftly. We really are a ginger group and we can ginger things up quickly.”

Mr Dell said he was distressed at comments made recently by a group of commercial trawler companies.

The five companies said they were not invited to the meeting with Mr Moyle.

Mr Dell said it would have been wrong to approach individual companies and so an invitation was sent to the president of the Lyttelton Fishermen’s Association, Mr Tony Treadwell, and to Mr Barry Chant, of the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen.

Mr Dell rejected other comments made by the trawlermen.

They had said that less

than 3 per cent of trawlers’ total catches were by-caught salmon, which was insignificant, and that if punitive measures called for by anglers were adopted, the Canterbury fishing industry, which employed about 1000 people, would be jeopardised.

Mr Dell said that if the 3 per cent was insignificant in monetary terms why was there a problem within the industry in lowering its value or catch of salmon?

If it was suggested that' industry employees were threatened by the loss of 3 per cent of its total catch, “either the figure of 3 per cent is too low or the industry relies very heavily on a species that others have a prior right to.”