OUR OYTSTER FISHERIES.

Evening Star, Issue 3828, 1 June 1875, Page 2

OUR OYTSTER FISHERIES.

Among the papers lately presented to the Provincial Conned is a very suggestive and i it resting repor, on Stewart’s Island, by dr W H Pearson, the Commissioner of Crown ! ands in the Southland district, who ia January la~t visited the island with the view of ascertaining how the repeopling (.1 tie oyster beds at Port Ad venture was progreasing. He now reports as fo l! ow3 t was surprised to find that although closed for nearly three years, the beds presented a ,'oor appearance both ms to size and quantity of oysters In _ England the oyster reaches its marketable size in from three to four years • while on the artificially cultivated beds in the Basin of Arcachon, in France, it is marketable when twenty-seven months old. Here it would appear that not only the mud oyster requires a longer time to reach maturity, but also the leep-sea oyster. One of the dredgers intermed me that during the last season he judged for experiment on one of the earliest discovered deen-sea beds; and although it fans uadfive years’rest, ih dodge contained onlv aalf-grown oysters, and, in his opinion, it would require at least three years further rest before the oysters would be worth dredging for. The past fecundity and value of the beds at Port Adventure m.y be estimated by the fact that some ten years ago the cutter Fiy, eighteen tons register, sailed into Oyster Cove, and filled up in four tides by shovelling the oysters un .uto the Wd, and, returning to Dunedin, ibo caigo icause l l IjouO, the pmchaser dealing tho oysters out of the cutter. About the earn# time the Maoris, many of whom then lived at the Maori Reserve at the Port, used to load their boats by scooping up the oysters with a dogrel, a small net fixed at tho end of a short ia e * beds solely supplied the iJunedin market, open or close season, until they became bo exhausted that the fisher* were obliged to find deep-sea beds j which, from what I can gather, line the bottom of roveaux Stmits, and lie along the shore from Black Rock Point to Paterson Inlet, or further south probably. The Port Adventure oyster is however, far superior to the deep-sea one in delicacy of flavor, and every exertion should be made to restore the beds to their pristine productiveness. To effect this I would suggest that the beds should be kept closed—no n alter the tim.—until, after careful examination by experts, they may be considered to have recovered ihe terrible mutilation they have sustained, a id then, and then only, the oyster flats or parks—for such they may ba considered—should be cut up into sections of such size as skilled knowledge may determine to be payable; the lease of each section beimr sold, under proper conditions, for a term of years, by auction, to the resident fishermen or others who may be inclined to entertain tha speculation; the land for a depth of, say a quarter of a mile along tho bank of Oyster Core, Red Sand ( ove, the cstuaiy of Heron River, and along the northern portion of tho Port itself iib far as White liead. being r£ served, and also leased to the lessees n f oyster parks to enable them to ami work them properly. Bv sn«b „ . n , an i m ot « nly ?? # teienue, but tho beds will receive tb« otf

lest protected. At Lords Elver I saw many hundreds of rock oysters, which, having been fished up and found too small for market, were left on the rocks above high-water mark to perish, instead of being thrown back into the rivers. I think it would be well ta have a close season for rock oysters at Stewart Island, if for no other purpose than to protect the Port Adventure beds. If theie is no close season for rock oysters, they will very soon become extinct.