Shucks, are Bluff oysters finished?

Invercargill oyster openers may soon be a dying breed. Picture / Simon Baker

The Bluff oyster fishery may be beyond saving after years in which the concerns of local fishermen have been ignored, says a University of Otago researcher.

Peter Knight said yesterday: "There's a consensus among everyone that the Bluff oyster fishery is in ruins.

"You cannot argue with the fact that the catches are only a few per cent of what they were 20 or 30 years ago.

"But it is what to do, given the state of the fishery. What is the way forward with management now?

"That is where there are differences of opinion."

Mr Knight, who lectures in hydrographic surveying, bases his assessment on research involving interviews with more than 50 Bluff fishermen shut out of the management of the fishery since the application of the quota management system (QMS) in the mid-1990s.

In a paper, Picking among the ruins, Mr Knight said when the fishermen had been involved, they had brought a strong conservation ethic to the fishery.

"The QMS is a system conceived in abstract isolation and operating in bureau-space.

"It is not about oysters and people, it is about quota numbers and property rights. It is non-management at the highest level," the paper says.

The QMS put those not directly involved in fishing, the quota holders, at the centre of management, and marginalised those actually involved, the fishermen.

Mr Knight's argument is disputed by the Bluff Oyster Management Co, which oversees the fishery.

Chairman Warren Conway said yesterday this year's season, which ended on August 31, was an improvement on last year, when some fishermen could not fill their quota.

"The quality of the fish was better and most people finished early, on the first or second days of August," he said.

Some boats had fished right up to the end of the season but mainly for "market-related reasons".

He said NIWA studies backed the continued viability of the resource.

"Everybody has their views but I would rather stick with the scientific view and that is the NIWA view," Mr Conway said.

"The amount of oysters we take out of the fishery, compared with what is there, is so insignificant it does not really matter."

Mr Conway also disputed the view the QMS had excluded the views of locals.

"Each skipper this year, without exception, filled in a daily logbook with the catch and catch rates, where they were, what the sea floor was, all those sorts of things.

"You cannot get any closer than that, can you?"

However, Mr Knight said those in charge did not weigh all scientific information equally.

Several papers by NIWA scientist John Cranfield showing the damage done to the Foveaux Strait sea floor by oyster dredging had been largely overlooked.

Ministry of Fisheries senior fisheries management adviser Rose Grindley said the biggest problem facing the fishery remained the bonamia parasite.

"That is really the thing that affects the fishery the most," she said.

The oysters taken by the fishermen were a small part of what was happening beneath the surface but the fishery was "certainly viable".

Grindley said the catches at the moment were much lower than at the peak of the fishery "but we certainly foresee it as a sustainable fishery into the future".

The season just finished was better than last year and there were signs next year would be better again.

A new management plan, put together as part of a new ministry initiative, involving local runanga representatives, commercial and recreational fishermen, was due to go out for wider consultation in coming weeks.

The ministry also had it own extensive research programme.

"I think we are in touch with what's going on," Grindley said.


Dying breed

* Quota in the 1960s was 170,000 sacks (though the record catch was 164,000).

* By the late 1970s, quota was down to 115,000 sacks.

* The bonamia parasite struck the fishery in the late 1980s, closing the fishery for two years in the 1990s.

* In 2003, quota owners took a voluntary cut from 9000 sacks to 4500 sacks, down from a quota of 15 million oysters to 7.5 million oysters.

* This year the season ran from March 26 until August 31

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES