Thread: Eugenie Sage wants to Ban Whitebaiting

You are correct management will be difficult as we have a lot of rivers. Some like Big Bay etc will require the use of air craft to get to. It won't be impossible it will just need to be well thought out.
There will still be people who will flaunt any system as they believe it is their right to take as much of anything as they like. That has always been a tough one.

Yeah mate,I’m in your court....and not to get off the subject....but when they catch these wankers,the fines,deterrents,etc,are nothing short of bloody pathetic........so in the end you manage the stocks,increase the numbers,protect the ecosystem,habitat protection etc etc .......it leads to more thievery!!!!!!......there is no real deterrent for these pricks,enforcement is akin to pissing into a cook straight wind......

Originally Posted by 300wsm for life

You are correct management will be difficult as we have a lot of rivers. Some like Big Bay etc will require the use of air craft to get to. It won't be impossible it will just need to be well thought out.
There will still be people who will flaunt any system as they believe it is their right to take as much of anything as they like. That has always been a tough one.

You need to remember that the Greens wish to make NZ the way it was hundreds of years ago. Whilst that is a lovely thought it is completely impractical. We can't turn back the clock, what we can do is adapt to our current environment. This part seems largely to have been lost on the eco worriers like Eugenie Sage. NZ or the rest of the world for that matter will not in our life time return to the state it was hundreds of years ago.

Originally Posted by 300wsm for life

You need to remember that the Greens wish to make NZ the way it was hundreds of years ago. Whilst that is a lovely thought it is completely impractical. We can't turn back the clock, what we can do is adapt to our current environment. This part seems largely to have been lost on the eco worriers like Eugenie Sage. NZ or the rest of the world for that matter will not in our life time return to the state it was hundreds of years ago.

In order to return NZ to pre human state, they'll have to leave. what an inconvenient truth.

It’s all tip of the wedge stuff that’s scary , same as the firearm fuckup , I don’t agree with any of it but some guys do exploit the whitebait far beyond hunting and gathering for family and friends .
She will want to get rid of the Trout and Salmon next ....

Originally Posted by Lucky

It’s all tip of the wedge stuff that’s scary , same as the firearm fuckup , I don’t agree with any of it but some guys do exploit the whitebait far beyond hunting and gathering for family and friends .
She will want to get rid of the Trout and Salmon next ....

UMMMM HELLO they have already mentioned that one...the twigs n twitterers have at least.

Yes they want five freshwater fishies removed from our rivers,all being a threat to our native types.
Wake up chaps..our Government are only puppets to the powers that want these agenda's put in place and it's global.
All none native species are on the hit list. As for the West Coast well there aint a hellova lot left here now that they haven't shut down or stopped us from doing. knee deep poison on top of all that mmmmmmm,aint lookin great.

You no I remember watching a program a couple of years ago about a bloke farming weka , he,d breed a thousands over the years for release , his argument was we should be farming some of our native birds to eat I reckon its a great idea imagine farming thousands of some of our endangered birds like weka , kiwi , kereru to name a few, breed the bastards up eat a bunch & liberate a bunch im sure there would be a market for it in restaurants , win win , whitebait would be another classic example that would really take the wind out of the commercial sail in this country by decreasing the demand ....food for thought .

Interesting responses. For the past few years people, including many whitebaiters, have been suggesting that whitebait populations are under threat and have been asking for measures such as banning sock nets.
Now that a government is prepared to do something about it they get criticized. Who'd be a politician.

I think if the fishery is to be further regulated the best way to do it is to simply shorten the season. This would affect everybody equally.

Originally Posted by Backcountry Bob

Interesting responses. For the past few years people, including many whitebaiters, have been suggesting that whitebait populations are under threat and have been asking for measures such as banning sock nets.
Now that a government is prepared to do something about it they get criticized. Who'd be a politician.

I think if the fishery is to be further regulated the best way to do it is to simply shorten the season. This would affect everybody equally.

I actually agree. Shorter seasons will work better than anything.

They just gotta stop the customary take bullshit.
I know people that catch shitloads during the season then get a friend or family member to fish their stand and slay it well after the season.

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I fish the Waikato river a lot. 4 years ago we had the best season in living memory, how was that possible in a so called declining fishery?. They did a study a few years ago by catching a whole lot of whitebait at the river mouth which they then dyed a different colour. They then with cooperation from the local baiters found out how much was re-caught as it moved up stream, that ended up being about 10%. I get that this % of the bait that goes up stream which is caught may vary from river to river it still shows that a hell of a lot beats us.
What a lot of you that don't fish ( but are more than happy to buy a fritter off a food truck ) realise is that not only do whitebait run at night (when we are not allowed to fish for it) but it also runs for most of the year. There is this huge assumption that we are fishing for it at the only time it runs which is totally false. I have seen huge runs moving upstream on the opening of Duck shooting and Boxing day!.
Habitat protection and improved water quality will do more to improve runs than anything else. There are already lots of restrictions and rules placed on whitebaiters and these rules are working well.
I cannot remember his name but there is a whitebait expert from Canterbury Uni that has been interviewed a TV in the past, he is a record about all this whitebait going extinct in 10 years blar blar blar is wrong. On the Waikato catches are not declining.

Remember who is telling you that the resource is being over fished...............think about it.............. Its the same lefty, sandal wearing, pot reformist vegans that took our guns! The true experts say that is BS. Here on the Waikato river we do get seasonal variation on the amount caught but on average catches are holding steady.

Maybe Ms Sage should simply change the law to permanently fence off 20m each side of any water way and ban effluent being discharged into waterways. Still that would be in the too hard basket requiring a modicum of commonsense.

Farmers are doing their bit, they get grief about dirty dairy etc and to be fair historically there was some truth to that. I remember growing up on a dairy farm and watching the effluent from the yard just running down the drain. However farmers have stepped up and all that is long gone. The change in the water quality of the lower Waikato in the last 30 years has been dramatic, when I was a kid a times over the summer the water would literally stink, to the point you would hesitate to let the gun dog to swim in it let alone yourself.
Now while there is still more sediment in the water than is ideal of which a fair bit of is coming out of the Waipa river( even that is getting better ) it at least is safe to swim in!. If anything the whitebait catches from what the oldtimers have told me (one of which was a buyer for the whitebait factory when it was running) have improved. However one thing that has dropped off is the smelt or parorai (spelling) runs.

Just out of interest could someone from up in the North of Zealand tell me ...is all this whitebait shit only goin on here on the
West Coast of the South Island or is the same bullshit goin on up North as well?
Just that I have not gone into it at any depth.