EXTRADITION QUINNAT SALMON

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 129, 28 November 1923, Page 6

EXTRADITION QUINNAT SALMON

NOW FIRMLY ESTABLISHED

TENS OF THOUSANDS IN THE

RIVERS.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL TO THE POST.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. How firmly established is quinnat salmon in New Zealand was indicated yesterday by the Chief Inspector of fisheries, Mr. L. F. Ayson. For several years, he said, this species had been running up rivers in North Otago and Canterbury in very large numbers. Last season, it was no exaggeration to say, in the Clutha, Waitaki, Rangitata, Rakaia, Waimakariri, and Wairau Rivers they run up in tens of thousands. The Marine Department officers collected about 1,500,000 eggs of quinnat salmon during early part of the spawning season, "but the heavy floods which prevailed later rendered it impossible to continue the work of collection. The Department had had in hand the stocking of the Wairau River. A large number of eggs collected last, season were hatched out and the young fish liberated in the tributaries of that river. As the result of stocking the Wairau, salmon were showing up in other rivers m Marlborough. The fish had crossed Cook Strait, and were to be found in rivers flowing into Palliser Bay, and also in the Rangitikei River. . The quinnat salmon, said Mr. Ayson, was not, in his opinjon, equal to the Atlantic salmon as a sporting fish; nevertheless, anglers in Otago and Canterbury spoke enthusiastically in regard to the quinnat as a sporting fish, and they recognised, too, that it was of considerable food value. Without doubt the quinnat would prove of great commercial value. As to the possibility of a canning industry being created, Mr. Ayson said he did not think there would be any necessity for the Department to take any steps for some time to come, simply because in the cities of Australia there existed now a practically unlimited market for fresh and mild cured salmon.