carefully, get your eye in!
The Pāua Industry Council.
Right now the Ministry of Fisheries is running a public consultation on a regulatory change titled “Commercial fishers landing exemption for legal-sized pāua“, and another similar consultation for Bluff oysters.
What’s that all about we have been asked ?
Well, there is a little bit of background to understand before the question can be answered.
This round of consultations are part of a line of work the Ministry is doing to tidy up some long standing anomalies around the status of fish which is or isn’t allowed to be returned to the sea after being commercially caught. This is part of the changes to the Fisheries Act included in the 2023 Fisheries Amendment Bill.
For a long time if a Bluff Oyster fisherman for example, caught oysters which were of a legal size, they were allowed to be returned to the sea so that juvenile oysters attached to clumps of legal sized oysters could be returned intact. This was allowed , as they were approved to do so under Schedule 6 of the Fisheries Act.
Schedule 6 is being transitioned out and replaced by a specific Ministerial Exemption.
To get such an exemption for a species it needs to, amongst other things, pass one or more of a number of tests. The key one is whether a returned fish has a high likelihood of survival. And that in turn has several tests;
“Likelihood of survival will be informed (where information is available) by the:
- Species biology,
- Quantitative, anecdotal, or other qualitative information on the species:
- Mortality when caught using certain methods or under different environmental conditions,
- Post-release survivability following different methods/ conditions of capture, or
- Likely effectiveness of handling practices that provide an acceptable likelihood of survival that might be required for an exception”
For commercially caught pāua the answer is yes, the survival rate of any post harvest released pāua is very high. A study done by NIWA in 2003 in Marlborough suggested a mortality rate of about 0.03% of pāua landed. This makes sense as professional pāua divers initially measure catch in the water, and return to the reef immediately if too small. Mostly though they are very good judges of what is and isn’t size. They get their eye in with practice. Finally, pāua catch can be destined for the live export market which demands extremely careful handling methods.
Other factors to be considered by the Minister before granting an exception are ;
- The sustainability of the stock or species.
- The method by which the stock or species is taken.
- The handling practices for the stock or species taken
- The social, cultural, and economic factors that the Minister considers relevant
The last point is interesting, because of course for customary and recreational divers and fishers there are benefits to non-commercial sectors in the form of increased pāua abundance (as a result of the protection of pāua spawning opportunity through variable MHS) and exclusive access to legal-sized sub-MHS pāua.
Though obviously we think that other sectors need to fish at more biologically appropriate sizes as well!
Why would we want a Ministerial exemption to allow us to return “fitters” to the sea?
This is because the best available science internationally, and in this country, says that we need to harvest pāua at a biologically appropriate size to ensure long term sustainability of our fisheries. It is best practice fisheries management to only take adult fish which have had a few years spawning, contributing to the population, before being available to be caught.
We have printed a number of pieces in this paper discussing the issue of best harvest size. In some place 125mm, the current national MLS (with the exceptions of Taranaki and Kaikoura) is the best size. But in many areas it is not.
Often the appropriate size, especially from the Wairarapa coast south, is quite a bit larger than the minimum legal size (MLS). It’s no secret that for example on Stewart Island we have our measures set at 142mm. The results of this industry policy, coupled with early intervention by the Ministry in getting catch levels down, has really boosted the Rakiura paua fishery.
Variable size limits are a key fisheries management measure to build and maintain abundance. Our intention is to try and ensure that pāua fisheries are maintained at high levels of abundance. And having the Minister approve this landing “exception” will help that.
Link to Paua Industry Council
