No fish in Paradise, the loss of fish in New Zealand
Saturday, January 20th 2007 @ 12:00 AM (not yet rated)
Within the biosphere we think that global environmental pollution etc is out there, somewhere overseas, over the horizon, which in NZ is still quite clear when you look out to sea, BUT getting more hazier every decade, which is a concern.
When we look at the microcosm of what’s happening on earth. Where I’m living in New Zealand on Auckland’s North Shore, between Takapuna and Milford, with the blue/green Hauraki Gulf lapping the bays, I daily look out at or walk on the beach and around the lava.
Where once when I was a kid in the 50’s and 60s’ you could find fish swimming in abundance, plenty of small fish, like mau mau, patiki, porouri, sprats, cod and piper. Plus there were shrimp in the rock pools, baby mussels on the rocks, oysters, barnacles, cats eyes you name it. I remember digging up pippies (small tasty molluscs) from Milford beach in 1969. Today ... nothing. All gone!
Now the area is occupied by far fewer seagulls, with a couple of lonely cormorants or shags patrolling the two kilometres of rocks and beaches and the constant reconnaissance up to a kilometre out by solitary gannets ... the marine life along the fore shore has all but disappeared.
With urban run off from storm water, roads, detergents from car washing, paints and herbicides that eventually get into the water there is an urgent need for conscious choices by community to desist from such practices.
Storm water outflows into the sea, there are now Council signs telling us not to eat any shellfish, plus signs telling children not to play around the storm water drain pipe outlets. These problems plus the fact that treated sewage that has not been completely neutralised and filtered is pumped 4 kilometres out to sea has to be far more effectively treated than we have now. Laws will need to be maximised against coastal pollution and enforced.
Recently, I ran into a marine biologist who has been researching NZ fishing stocks for snapper, one of the most delicious tasting fish. He says they are rapidly declining in numbers, and though the public blame the commercial trawlers for the problem, he said it is now the recreational fishermen who are at fault. If 5,000 people are fishing every day around the country and are catching 2 fish each, (some have been catching up to 10 a trip) and multiply this by 365 days that equates to a huge number of fish being taken out of the gene pool, with not replacement.
The sardonic twist here in NZ is that for years we have been watching a number of fishing TV programs where one can go out with the resident TV fisher man and catch fish willynilly. Stating that NZ still has plenty of fish to catch, heaps of them ... that is what they are saying. They never mention the challenge of conservation and declining fishing stocks.
A recent specialist from over seas said that NZ needs to close down 1/3 of its fishing grounds to conserve stocks. Yet, fishermen, be it commercial or recreational feel they have an unlimited right to any fish in NZ waters, without becoming involved virtually in any conservation measures whatsoever.
Take, take, take, yet we breathe ... an in breath and an out breath, life is a balance, of ebb and flow, giving and receiving, but the fishermen apparently fail to comprehend equilibrium, stability and the gifts of life from the ocean.
