SEINE NETTING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 624, 28 March 1929, Page 18

SEINE NETTING

REQUEST FOR LIMITATION “TONS OF FISH DESTROYED” A request that trawling and seine netting be limited was made yesterday to the Hon. J. G. Cobbe, Minister of Marine, by Mr. A. M. Samuel, M.P. for Thames, who represented the fishermen of Mercury Bay.? Mr. Samuel said there were 24 launches operating in the bay, most of the fishermen being married men, with a total of 149 dependants. They were afraid that, if trawlers and Danish seine netters were allowed within a certain limit, the waters would be depleted to such an extent as to imperil the operations of line fishermen. The Minister undertook to investigate the position, and expressed the opinion that it was wiser to settle the matter before complications arose. A similar request was made by a deputation headed by Mr. H. R. Jenkins, M.P., and Mr. W. E. Parry, M.P., and supported by the Hon. J. B. Donald, Mfr. J. S. Fletcher, M.P., Mr. G. C. Munns, M.P., and Mr. R. P. Hudson. It was urged that trawlers should be expelled permanently from the area inside a line from Whangaparaoa Peninsula, Tiri Island, the Noises, Thumb Point, Kauri Point, Shag Rock, the Sandspit lighthouse on the south-east of Ponui Island, and across to the Coromandel Peninsula. At present, it was said, wholesale destruction of small fish was taking place in the Hauraki Gulf, as the result of the operations of the Danish seine net trawlers. One with long experience said that 50 tons of small fish caught by one boat within a week had been destroyed. The Minister said he would have reports on the question submitted by his department.