FISH: FEAST OR FAMINE?

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 107, 7 May 1936, Page 8

FISH: FEAST OR FAMINE?

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was customary for people in New Zealand to talk, in the grand manner, of the "boundless harvest of the sea," the "illimitable resources of fish life in New Zealand waters," "swarming with teeming millions of edible fish," and similar fine phrases, to imply that there was no danger of exhausting such abundance. The opinion of the Chief Inspector of Fisheries (Mr. A. E. Hefford), who knows fisheries in other parts of the world, by no means bears out the once popular notion. He has always held, as he stated in an interview in "The Post" yesterday,- that "the supply is not so plentiful as many people suppose." He is therefore naturally concerned, as New Zealand in general well may be, with the proposal of an Australian company to establish a base in Cook Strait, with three modern trawlers, and deliver 300 tons of refrigerated fish in both Sydney and Melbourne each month. What this means, Mr. Hefford explained, was that each vessel would have to catch over six tons of fish per day, and he added:

All I can say is that it is very doubtful if they could do it. If they can do it, it is rery doubtful if the New Zealand fishing grounds could. stand up against that drain on their stocks for more than a very short time.

This is an expert opinion based on a depletion that has already taken place, notably in the Hauraki Gulf, through intensive commercial fishery, the subject of a deputation to the Minister of Marine (Mr. Fraser) on Tuesday. The altitude taken up by Mr. Hefford is that there is far too much waste in the fishing methods employed in New Zealand waters. After pointing out that New Zealand fishing grounds would suffer in the same way as elsewhere in the world through undue exploitation, he summed up the position by stating that, while at present New Zealand grounds were not facing a period of decline, it was necessary to introduce better management of the fishing business with less waste, and a way of handling the fish, so that, while a first-class and appetising foodstuff emerged from the sea, it did not reach the consumer as only a third-class foodstuff.- If this were done, we fancy the public would learn to appreciate better the difference between a feast and a famine in fish.