Should orange roughy be classified as a threatened species?

9:01 AM Monday Jul 23, 2012

Digital image / P.K. Stowers

The United States government may recommend that orange roughy be classified as a threatened species.

The recommendation would be made to CITES, the world body overseeing trade of wild animals and plants.

If the move was accepted it would put greater restirctions on commerical fishing of the species and a strict monitoring programme would have to be set up.

Recent NZ government estimates put the number of adult orange roughy in New Zealand waters at around 140 million.

Should orange roughy be classified as a threatened species? Here is the latest selection of Your Views:

Juggernaut (New Zealand) | 10:13AM Monday, 23 Jul 2012

140 million! They're about as endangered as Russians.

raegun (Bay of Plenty) | 10:13AM Monday, 23 Jul 2012

Perhaps a bit of realism could prevail here, practically everything in the ocean is under threat now. Not a lot of point in singling out one species.

WarwickH-S () | 10:14AM Monday, 23 Jul 2012

Call me a cynic, but I somehow get the feeling that if the US wants to have a species declared threatened, then there is a buck to be made by themselves in a competing market. Look a bit deeper and we may find that orange roughy from NZ is spoiling the profits of an American catch.

140 million. A number that is meaningless without looking at breeding rates, life span etc and current quotas and catch. Surely our own quota system is set so that the species is sustainable.