Boating New Zealand – April 2018

80 Boating New Zealand

C

rayfsh are in serious decline almost

everywhere. In Gisborne locals have for

years complained that they cannot catch a

legal-sized crayfsh, a fact made even more

distasteful by a commercial ‘concession’. Tis

concession allows commercial quota holders

to harvest crayfsh with a carapace width of 52cm rather than

54cm, which is the recreational size limit.

Poaching is also a very serious problem, with the then-

Minister of Primary Industries in 2017 making an explicit

allowance of more than 160 tonnes to cover crayfsh lost to fsh

thieves when setting new, reduced quotas for CRA3 and CRA4.

FUNCTIONALLY EXTINCT

Crayfsh numbers are declining in other regions too.

In the Hauraki Gulf, numbers are now so low crayfsh are

no longer contributing to the ecology. Tey are ‘functionally

extinct,’ according to Dr Tim Haggit, a marine ecology

consultant with eCoast.

Haggit was commenting on monitoring in and near three

marine reserves in the Hauraki Gulf that show crayfsh

numbers continue to plummet (see sidebar).

Te Hauraki Gulf is managed as part of CRA2, which extends

from Pakiri in the north to East Cape, including the Bay of Plenty.

Te latest ofcial assessment, says LegaSea spokesman Scott

Macindoe, shows the crayfsh population has been in decline

for many years. LegaSea is a recreational fshing advocacy

arm of the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council focussed on

rebuilding abundant inshore fsheries.

At the start of the current fshing year crayfsh numbers

represented fve per cent of what was available before large-

scale fshing. Commercial fshers in the Gulf have doubled their

cray-potting over the past 16 years but are catching fewer crays

today than they were at the beginning of the century.

When commercial cray-fshers are struggling to fll their

quotas, it’s not surprising recreational fshers fnd catching a

feed almost impossible. It’s difcult to conclude otherwise than

that the stock is collapsing.

Where have all the crayfish gone?

Into the mouths of well-heeled

restaurant-goers in Asia and

elsewhere would be my guess,

courtesy of the National Rock

Lobster Management Group and the

commercial fishing industry.

with JOHN EICHELSHEIM

THECATCH

It’s difcult

to conclude

otherwise than

that the stock is

collapsing.

Crayfish

crisis