TRAWLERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 136, 30 August 1927, Page 8

TRAWLERS

Sir, — It is necessary that the public should read a l-epjy to Mr. Sanford. Mr. Sanford says “he agrees with Mr. Hefford that trawling does not injure spsv. n ” otherwise Mr. Sanford asserts "the herring fisheries of the North Sea would have been ruined long ago.” I do not think Mr. Hefford said this, but refen-ed to particular spawns. But here is the point where Mr. Sanferil goes astray, for trawlers never go near herring. They cannot, because there are hundreds of miles of drift nets in the road. One boat will carry up to four miles of net. I thought anyone would have known this. “Millions of tons of schnapper spawn along our coast,” says Mr. Sanford, and that is one reason why we want all powerdriven nets prohibited. Unlike Mr. Sanford, we believe power nets are injurious to spawn and to spawning fish, and still more injurious to environment, and we want them turned out of the Hauraki Gulf, which is so far as schnapper are concerned, overfished. Mr. Sanford’s remarks regarding salmon are quite erroneous. Sufficient salmon are now allowed to pass and spawn. Mr. Sanford is at sea If he thinks that there are no regulations for quinnat salmon canneries. With regard to in-shore trawling, in other parts of New Zealand, we might inform Mr. Sanford that the Opotiki people me furiously angry at the depletion of fish by trawlers close to their short while both Russell and Wiiangarei people are raging. We now have evidence thett schnapper eat shark f*-y from natives, fish-cleaners, and fishermen. Everyone knows that sharks eat schnapper, but we have opened sharks as small as three feet and found in them schnapper! Now, the contention that the fished-out area will return to its former balance falls to the ground. The balance of nature where schnapper were so numerous as to keep sharks well under is upset, and this is the truth ovi-