FISHERIES COMMISSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17110, 15 March 1919, Page 11

FISHERIES COMMISSION

AUCKLAND TRAWLING AREA. : -<> ' Y BEST IN THE DOMINION. ' I , ' .VIEWS OF MR. L. F. AYSON. The commission inquiring into the local fishing industry continued its sitting yesterday, tie chairman, Mr. E. 0. Cutten, S.M, presiding. ' Francis P. Flinn, inspector of fisheries for the North Auckland district, said he did not think the Hauraki Gulf was a breeding* ground for the whole of the East Coast. He thought any fairly sheltered and shallow water was a breeding place. He did not say that the trawlers had depleted the fish, which had gone i down gradually. I To Mr. Richmond: The limits which the Department had proposed gave little shelter from north or north-east winds. L. F. Ayson, chief inspector of fisheries in New Zealand, continuing bis evidence, said that from his own observations and from other sources he was convinced that : the Thames gulf, with its bays, was a great rearing ground for young fish, particularly schnapper. There was no part of New Zealand where there was such a very large extent of trawling and fishing ground as around the coast of the Auckland Province. He had trawled over all the trawling ground around the South Island and North Island, and taking; square mile for square mile on any of the trawling grounds of the South, including, Hawke's Bay, there was none that he knew of that would yield, probably more! than a quarter of tie tonnage of fish which could be taken from the trawling grounds around the Auckland Province, : i including the 200 square miles which had ! • been trawled over in the Hauraki Gulf : since 1915. If the area inside the present limits in the gulf were opened for tr<iw.ing as far as Deadmau's Point, as had Been asked for, • he felt certain that all the trawlers would work there continually, because'of the ground being * near a market, and he contended that while for a time they would most probably get considerable quantities of marketable fish, the destruction of immature fish would inevitably be very great. Outside tie present boundaries the trawlers had a very large extent of trawling' ground, and frtyn the information given i by owners of trawlers it seemed that the' catches were at present as large as they, were when trawling commenced in 1915. No other centre in the Dominion had any-' thing like the same extent of trawling ground in one compact area, so well stocked with fish, so well sheltered, and within such easy reach of markets. He considered that from these trawling grounds and others somewhat further afield, Auckland's market could he well, supplied for a great many years to come, > and at a low cost. He was convinced that a large number of schnapper spawned in the Hauraki Gulf. Witness read extracts from the evidence given before the < Select Committee of the House of Com-' mons appointed to consider the Sea Fisheries Bill in England in 1914. The commission adjourned till this morning. _^