Pizzles add to credibility problem

Forest and Bird, Volume 23, Issue 1, 1 February 1992, Page 5

Pizzles add to credibility problem

Alan Tennyson

HE DISCOVERY of 14 seal pizzles (penises) in the luggage of a Korean fisherman flying out of New Zealand in November has again highlighted the sorry state the marine environment will be in if the fishing industry gains more control over the country’s fisheries.

The seaman had worked onboard the Oyang 86, one of the Korean trawlers chartered by the New Zealand company United that fishes for hoki off the West Coast in winter. Only three male seals had been reported caught during the entire fishing season from all Korean trawlers and observers noted that all three had had their penises removed. The Oyang 86 did not carry an observer and did not report any seal captures. The pizzles were presumably taken because in some Asian countries they are regarded, like rhino horns, as an aphrodisiac. The pizzle discovery goes against Fishing Industry Board (FIB) and Fishing Industry Association assur-

ances that every effort is being made to reduce fur seal and Hooker’s sea lion captures and to report every animal caught as required by law. The FIB’s code of practice on how to avoid seal capture and reduce stress to seals if they are onboard, and New Zealand’s laws which expressly forbid killing or harassing any marine mammal, are obviously being flouted by many fishers. Out of about 430 seals

reported caught in the last three hoki seasons almost 90 percent have come from trawlers carrying observers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Yet only 20 percent of trawlers carry observers. Thus the true number of seals killed during these seasons is likely to be nearer 2,000. This huge kill will have had a severe effect on the 8,000 or so seals on the West Coast, yet nothing effective has been done to

ensure that the seal kill is markedly reduced in future. To ensure that marine mammal deaths are properly reported and that protected species aren’t mutilated, every trawler needs to have observers on board. The costs should be carried by the fishing industry which have shown that they are unable to police their own activities. This is current practice in Canada.