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    Re: Paddle Crab Invasion Archived Message

    Posted by Jase on 13/9/2008, 8:05 pm, in reply to "Re: Paddle Crab Invasion"

    I'm totally with Trev here...

    "On a positive note Jim Anderton, The Minister of Fisheries has the testicular fortitude to make some hard decisions in regards to fish stocks. However he can only make decisions on the advice he receives from the scientific quarter. And if the TACC models and other information is flawed. Then the result is a depleted fish stock."

    I've been making that claim for years. Mis-information is a huge issue with these limits. No commercial fisherman wants to see his bread and butter destroyed, but for some reason some of them will fish right up to their quota allocation whether they think a fishery can sustain it or not.

    There is some very shifty issues going on right now in regard to fisheries management and the setting of allocation limits for TACC.

    It is also important to recognise that recreational catch is also a very large contributor to catch rates. If you include longlines, boaties, surfcasters, rock fishermen, set netters, drag netters......all of these things contribute to overall recreational catch and must be considered. Sometimes, we as surfcasters forget that "recreation fisherman" includes all of these groups and not just us with a rod on the beach.

    If we also factor in gatherers of paua, crayfish, bull kelp, tuatua, pipis, mussels, crabs, kina......all of these things contribute to removal of food items for our target species. By over harvesting in these areas, whether or not everyone takes only their limit we still put pressure on the resources and remove parts of a delicate food chain that can only sustain so much pressure.

    We often refer to poachers and over fishing, but if many people take their limits from specific areas its still putting pressure on those areas that cannot be sustained.

    As long as we personally do our bit to conserve our fishery and educate as many others as possible of the benefits of taking only what you need, we can only move forward.

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