Under-reporting continues

Forest and Bird, Issue 266, 1 November 1992, Page 2

Under-reporting continues

Barry Weeber

THE DEATH of fur seals in the nets of foreign trawlers continues. And so does the trend of under-reporting by skippers. Claims by the Fishing Industry Association that all the seals which are caught are reported, defies belief. In the West Coast hoki fishery, which started in July, vessels carrying MAF scientific observers were ten times more likely to report fur seal deaths than those without an observer. Unless you believe that seals can detect which vessels have observers on board and deliberately drown themselves in the nets of these boats, there is no reason to suppose that the total seal catch is not in direct proportion to the number of trawls observed. This is the basis on which MAF Fisheries extrapolates the likely catch by the full fleet. Last year, for example, with observed vessels reporting 26 fur seal deaths and total observer coverage of just over 15 percent, MAF estimated that about 172 fur seals were

killed over the whole fishery. Another 70-80 seals were killed in the hoki fishery off Puysegur Point, Fiordland. Observer coverage this year has been the lowest ever. On the West Coast, despite a promised coverage of 20 percent, only ten percent of trawler tows were watched by MAF observers. Recent research by MAF researchers and Overseas scientists suggests that to get reliable figures on the by-catch of marine mammals and birds, observer coverage needs to be over 50 percent. Forest and Bird estimates that in the season which finished in September, over 200 fur seals were killed in the West Coast and Puysegur hoki fisheries. Another 60-120 seals were killed by trawlers earlier in the year in the squid fishery on the Snares shelf. The deaths in this fishery are a recent event, and have occurred in spite of the much-heralded industry code of practice. They bring the total of fur seals killed this year in New Zealand fisheries to nearer 300.