Opinion: Trawler boat owner Rex Sellers' take on snapper quota increase

A painting of the trawling boat Jennifer which can sometimes be seen from the Kapiti mainland.

Rex Sellers, an Olympic medal-winning yachtsman, who owns trawler boat Jennifer which can sometimes been seen operating in Kāpiti waters, writes about Fisheries New Zealand's proposed changes to snapper catch limits and responds to a recent article citing a predicted percentage increase and fishery impact.

Snapper Area 8 covers the area from Mana to North Cape, which has a snapper total allowable catch (TAC) of 1300 tonnes.

A total of 77.6 per cent of that quota is held in three names – 60.8 per cent Sanford, 13 per cent Moana and 3.8 per cent Talleys. The actual amount of snapper caught commercially in the Kāpiti district this year equates to 77 tonnes caught on four boats, or 6 per cent of the total catch.

Snapper is not our target species when we fish off Kāpiti and we have constructed special nets in the last year that snapper goes over the top of. The reason for increasing the biomass of Snapper 8 is because the law says when the biomass goes up beyond 50 per cent of the pre-fishing days the government must increase it.

To say it is going up 1600 tonnes https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kapiti-news/news/snapper-and-trawler-issues-to-be-discussed-at-public-meeting/DY5KDUINU7PQP7VPK4AXBLN5UI/ is, in my opinion, speculation.

More likely it is to be between 400-600 tonnes of which under N28 Rights 65 per cent will go to Sanford who operate their vessels out of Manukau, Auckland.

So to propose a 1600 tonne increase, and the pressure around Kāpiti, is completely incorrect.

Eighty per cent of the world's fish is caught by trawling. Wellington fish is currently provided by two trawlers of the four fishing in the area. Lose these and the 85 per cent of people that don't catch their own fish will have a huge price rise and quality downgrade.

The skipper of the vessel pictured in the article is of Ngati Te Atiawa heritage. His tribal affiliations are many and varied extending from the Mokau River to the Campbell Islands. His primary affiliations are Te Atiawa and Ngai Tahu. His mokopuna are 10th generation beneficiaries of the sea.

A similar heritage applies to one of the other four skippers fishing this area.

Our skipper has fished in these waters for 29 years. He tows the same narrow line that he was doing when he started when he may have seen three or four runabouts. Now he sees hundreds of bigger and better-equipped vessels moving further out to fish alongside and beyond him.

The Ministry of Fisheries has done a survey of recreational fishers and estimates there are up to 1000 recreational fishermen between Foxton and Mākara with no check on the TAC whereas commercial have to account for every kilo. We believe that the recreational is equivalent to the commercial catch in this area.

The quota system has restored the snapper fishery biomass from 7 per cent to over 50 per cent. This seems, once again, a case of recreational fishermen trying to lock up areas for their own use.

The fish in this ecosystem is currently thriving, and there is plenty of fish for all users, and that is how a shared, thriving fishery, which is what we have, is meant to operate. And this is a result of the quota management system which has been operational since 1986 and has become a world model for one of the best fisheries in the world along with Canada.