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CATCH REDUCTIONS
In response to concerns about the fshery, the total allowable
catch for commercial fshers in CRA2 was reduced in 2014 by
36 tonnes to 200 tonnes. Recreational take and customary
take, both estimations, remained the same at 140 tonnes and
16.5 tonnes respectively. Further reductions are on the cards.
Last year, then Primary Industries Minister Nathan
Guy brought a management review of CRA2 forward by a
year, a tacit acknowledgement the fshery was being poorly
managed. Te Ministry has since invited input on several
options for the future management of CRA2 – but only gave
the public 18 working days to respond.REC FISHERS WANT ACTION
In early February 2018 the New Zealand Sport Fishing
Council, along with LegaSea, requested help to formulate a
response.LEFT It is becoming
increasingly difcult for
recreational fishers to
catch a feed of crayfish.
ABOVE CRA2 extends
from Pakiri in the north
to Te Araroa in the
south-east.
RIGHT Large snapper
and crayfish help keep
kina numbers in check.DOC research from 2014 showed that fish and crayfish stocks at
Goat Island Marine Reserve were lower than when the reserve was
established more than 40 years ago.
By 2016 numbers had dropped a further 25 percent, according
to eCoast’s Dr Haggit, an assertion backed by Dr Nick Shears, senior
lecturer of marine sciences at Auckland University.
Research by Dr Shears and others has monitored crayfish inside
the three main marine reserves – Goat Island Leigh, Tawharanui
and Hahei – while keeping track of crayfish at sites outside reserve
boundaries for comparison. Shears and Haggit have data going back
20 years for some sites.
The research shows crayfish numbers are falling outside as well
as inside the reserves.
In 1995 there were 10 crayfish per unit area (500m^2 ) in the spots
monitored around the Leigh coastline and Kawau Island, compared
to 40 inside Leigh Reserve.
The most recent data shows just five crayfish per unit outside the
reserve and only 10 inside it – a 50 percent reduction outside and a
75 percent reduction inside the reserve.
“Current Leigh Reserve crayfish levels are less than that
recorded outside the reserve in 1995,” Haggit says, and the other
reserves in the survey show similar declines, indicating a much
wider problem in CRA2, but this data isn’t currently being used by
the Ministry of Primary Industry in assessments to set quotas.
Haggit would like to see extensions to all our marine reserves,
plus the creation of more Marine Protected Areas. But ultimately,
he says, crayfish management has to change: “The fisheries
management areas are too big. They need to be smaller, with more
local-based management.” FEWER CRAYFISH INSIDE RESERVES