THE WEALTH OF THE SEA

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 284, 26 August 1922, Page 5

THE WEALTH OF THE SEA

A NEGLECTED ASSET. The monthly meeting of the Philosophical Society was held on Wednesday, when the Hon. G. M. Thomson, M.L.C., delivered an address on “The Wealth of the Sea.” The address, which was illustrated by a number of slides, dealt mainly with marine life in the waters immediately surrounding New Zealand. It was pointed out. that there are at least three countries which, by reason of their situation, should be pre-eminently maritime ana dependant on the sea for their existence. Up till now the people of this country had devoted all their time to the development of the land, to the almost total neglect of the sea. In 1920 the value of the fish taken from waters round New Zealand was £386.000. In that same year £200,000 worth of fish was imported. New Zealand could not claim, therefore, that she was a fish-eating country, as her annual expenditure represented approximately 6s. Bd. per head of the population.

Mr. Thomson also inferred to the hatcheries established in the South Island, which, it was hoped, would add greatly to the scientific knowledge of marine life. They also did good work in ascertaining the trend of ocean currents around New Zealand, so that the most advantageous positions could be selected for the liberation of fish when necessary.

The lecturer said it was a fallacy that any locality of largo area could be fished out. No doubt it could be, but for a time only. What was largely responsible for the scarcity in certain areas was the throwing overboard of ashes, refuse, etc., from passing ships, and the dumping of soil obtained in dredging, all these things being calculated to destroy millions of smaller organisms which were the food of yet more millions of larger fish. Mr. Thomson mentioned that very few species of fishes laid their eggs on the bed of the sea; nearly.all of the eggs floated. Each fish laid millions ofeggs, but the chance of the organism, which hatched, reaching to maturity was about two in 5,000,000. Indeed, this great mortality was one of the most remarkable things in connection with the sea!

In Europe the fishery industries were regarded as so important and bo essential to life that international boards had been constituted to inquire into-all problems of fishing, and consider means of developing the industry still more intensively. . Mr. Thomson instanced ways in which the. fish round these shores oould be utilised other than simply as food—such as the feeding of stock, fertilising purposes, the extraction of oil. There was no reason whatever why this countryshould not export fish in large quantities.