Letters: Don't kill crayfish breeding stock

ITM Hook Me Up host Matt Watson might know where the big crayfish are, but they're unlikely to be found in CRA2

The article on the devastation of crayfish stocks ( February, 11) is a timely warning of the inadequacy of the current management of our fisheries.

I recall in the 1970s (pre-quota management days) there was a boom in cray fishing out of Ahipara. There were multiple cray boats working out of Wreck Bay, fortunes were made, and in a few years the stock was wiped out. Quota management may have slowed the rape, but quite obviously not stopped it.

My wife and I spent a month or more sailing our yacht up through Maine, on the east coast of the USA. We were staggered by the number of lobster pots up the entire coast.

Thousands upon thousands, every bay and harbour was full of them. It was hard to manoeuvre around them. Channels were full of them, and the industry was thriving, and had been for decades.

Knowing the history out of Ahipara and around New Zealand, we just could not see how this could be. And we had seen row upon row of huge cod fishing boats tied up in New Bedford and other East Coast harbours, because the cod fishery out on the banks had been wiped out.

How then could the lobster stock survive the onslaught.

I asked, and was given a book setting out the history.

In the 1950s the government decided to regulate the Maine lobster men. They responded by saying, let us try first, we know the fishery best. If we fail, OK, you come in then and take over.

They formed themselves into a co-operative and made their rules. Firstly, they decided to protect their breeding stock. They identified that large lobster females and males had 10,000 times more eggs or sperm than small lobster — not 10,000 more, 10,000 times more — so they decided to protect them, male and female.

All lobster over 4lb caught in a pot would be thrown back. Further, any female taken with eggs would be thrown back, but before she was thrown back her tail would be notched to mark her as a breeder, and from then on if she was taken in a pot, eggs or not, she would be thrown back.

Then to allow them to grow to a marketable size, all lobster taken below 2lb would be thrown back. We watched the lobster boats work, a pot pulled up with eight or 10 lobster, and we'd watch as most were tossed back into the sea.

Surprise surprise, decade after decade the lobster industry thrives, the co-operative manages it.

And the government-regulated cod industry is dead.

The lesson from this is loud and clear and obvious. Don't kill your breeding stock. Look at what has happened to the cod fishery. Look at our wider fishing industry.

Why are they allowed to target egg-bearing females when they school to spawn? How insane is that, killing the egg-filled female before she lays the eggs for the next generation? And the bureaucrats prattle on about sustainable management.

The Maine lobster management system should be introduced here urgently, and in the wider fishing industry, as a start each species should have a closed season when they are spawning. How can any species survive when you kill off the breeding stock?

DANNY SIMMS
Mangonui