Special report
Kahawai, a popular recreational fish are becoming increasingly scarce says Recreational Fishers Marlborough Association spokesman Tony Orman.
The kahawai has been labelled “the family fish” as it provides recreational fishing for young and old and provides a home cooked meal for families. However the resource is being “hammered” by the greed of corporate company purse seiners to the point of collapse..
“Recent years have seen very much less and less kahawai being caught at popular fishing spots such as The Diversion and Wairau Bar. It’s a mere shadow of the once abundance of fish there,” he said.
Kahawai are schooling pelagic fish, introduced to the Quota Management System (QMS) in 2004 “to ensure sustainability.” They are highly prized by recreational fishers and commercially bulk harvested-largely via purse seining.
“The alarming decline shows the failure of the QMS to ensure that sustainability,” said Tony Orman.
A few decades ago, surface feeding kahawai schools were easily identified by excited gulls and terns wheeling above the feeding melees and were frequently seen around Marlborough’s coastline and even just off the Picton foreshore.
“But that is very much past tense with a feeding school only very occasionally seen today.”
Ministerial denial
The Recreational Fishers Marlborough Association had written over the years to successive fisheries ministers about the decline in kahawai but received ministerial responses that denied any problem.
“No doubt written by some ministers boffin for the Minister, the replies were insulting. The point is anglers are on the water often week by week, see and know trends. Some bureaucrat or minister in centrally heated offices doesn’t,” he said.
The kahawai individually is a low value fish but bulk fishing methods by corporate company purse seiners compensated for that in dollar returns.
Tony Orman said reports from around the country indicated that purse seiners were targeting kahawai aided by spotter aircraft radioing the location of surface feeding schools of fish.
Spotter plane
Reports elsewhere in the country such as Northland – Fisheries Minister Shane Jones’ territory – were of several purse seiners targeting big schools of kahawai aided by a “spotter” aircraft and removing them in rapid time.
The association had reports of purse seiners plundering surface shoals in Marlborough’s outer Pelorus Sound.
Kahawai are especially important to the food chain of the saltwater ecosystem as the location of a feeding spree on herrings attracted numerous sea birds while underneath other fish species like snapper, blue cod and others feasted on sinking scraps.
“It becomes a four way banquet. Remove the kahawai and seabirds and other fish species have their food supply depleted. Kingfish a major prey of kahawai and even seals suffer with depleted food supplies. Overfishing of a species can have unintended detrimental consequences for other life in the food chain.”
The Recreational Fishers Marlborough Association believed kahawai should be managed as a “recreational only” species along with kingfish, a concept that was promoted over 20 years ago but ignored by governments.
Footnote: The national Total Allowable Catch (TAC) – commercial – for kahawai is 5733 tonnes The TAC for KAH3 (includes Marlborough) is 410 tonnes but in the year 2023-4, the actual commercial kahawai catch was 221 tonnes – numerical evidence of over-fishing.
Kahawai on the fly rod are exceptional sport
Kahawai were introduced to the Quota Management System (QMS) in 2004-5 and now the fishery has collapsed. Really it shows how worthless the QMS is.
Other fisheries have similarly collapsed e.g. orange roughy for the second time since the species was discovered.
There is another factor in the collapsing of fisheries. The QMS favours the big boys like Talleys, Sanford, Sealords etc and the big corporates dominate the quota system because they buy out the true small Kiwi operartors.
The corporates are only interested in maximum profits which equates to plundering. The corporates friend in government is Fish Minister Shane Jones. He obeys his corporate mates. So the other factor is the Jones boy and his corporate mates – sustainability doesn’t figure in their culture.
Wellington Harbour used to fill up with schools of kahawai in the Autumn. Birds would be “working” above schools of kahawai everywhere. In the 1970’s I used to catch them as a 10-11 year old schoolboy in my wee rowboat with a handline and zed spinner trolling out the back. That was all I could afford.
I was in Wellington last week and saw only one small school of birds “working” near the Picton Ferry terminal. Drove to Days Bay and saw none anywhere else in the Harbour, including Eastbourne.
It would be difficult to have a “recreational only” species under current regulations because of bycatch while taking other quota species e.g. Jack Mackerel or barracuda. Best to just heavily cut the kahawai quota so that they are no longer targeted.
The concept of Kahawai as a family fish will be as lost on certain politicians and bureaucrats as the concept of community is lost on them. On their over-generous incomes and perks they lose touch with the reality of life as most New Zealanders
live it. So when it comes to choices between the well-being of the general populace and the profits of big businesses we know who’ll get their favourable treatment.
Seems to me that we need a political party with their main policy being to introduce the Swiss system of binding citizens’ referenda on major government proposals.
Kahawai aside for a moment, David Trantner is so correct about the culture in governments of favouring big business and especially political party donors.
The people are ignored except just before elections but even then promises are often hollow and politicians/parties insincere.
People need to be “on charge” not politicians who remain unaccountable.
David mentions the Swiss system of democracy. I read Amy Brookes book “100 days” about the system in Switzerland.
Now the Swiss system would really upset politicians – and their corporate friends.
Google “Amy Brooke 100 days” to get her book…if you care enough to do.
Years ago, scientist Lew Ritchie said the commercial exploitation of kahawai was
“nothing short of a tragedy. It is a classic case of the last available and easily exploited coastal fish being plundered just “because it is there” by the greedy, the thoughtless and the over-capitalised.”
“Most regrettably, this exploitation is being aided and abetted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and its optimistic stock assessment, which can be seen as both an encouragement to the exploiters and as a licence to exploit.”
“It is a sad reflection on New Zealand, its policy makers, and its industry chiefs that virtually every available natural resource is plundered, whether valuable or not, and irrespective of its place in our heritage, tradition, culture and recreation.”
“Although the valuable role played by the kahawai is appreciated by many , it is well worth stating for those who do not know.”
Kahawai are a very important part of the inshore fish, seabird and plankton feeding relationship which is the natural expression of a normal, healthy, inshore marine ecosystem.”
Kahawai is a low value per fish. But bulk catching by purse seiners makes it worthwhile for the big corporates. There would be a much higher fishreturn through use of kahawai for recreation and tourism only.
Imagine an American tourist hooked to a kahawai on fly fishing gear. That fish would be released and be recycled.
Importantly the inshore ecosystem would not lose a very important species in the food chain.
The kahawai and its predartor kingfish should be “recreational only” species.
Well said Recreational Fishers Marlborough
Kahawai and kingfish recreational only species – which political party might pick that up to be in its election manifesto.?
Yep being “OVER FISHED” & White Bait mostly removed from their Menu, sadly in some areas !
Ten to fifteen years ago at our local Hawkes Bay beaches it was impossible to not catch Kahawai. Always if I wanted to make fish cakes or Smoked Fish pie, I only had to go five minutes from home, fish for an hour and go home with two or three fish. Now, here we are, some ten years later and you are lucky to catch one in a day out.
At club Field Weekends, many of our members fish over two days and still can’t catch a Kahawai. There are still hundreds of this species in our fisheries but there used to be hundred’s of thousands with boil ups a far as the eye could see. Not now. A sad indictment of the QMS that allows them to be plundered by the purseigners.
A species that should have remained recreational only. It has now been decimated along with a lot of other species by commercial fishers who have no mind for the future just dollars in pockets now.
Shane Jones and the New Zealand First party (hereby re-named the New Zealand Last party because they put New Zealanders dead last) wrote the Fisheries reform bill designed to allow the fishing industry ” to grow”. In other words uncontrolled depletion. The drop in Kahawai stocks was dramatic and it is us old codgers who remember what it was like before. Better decisions for the Kahawai and the bait fish is needed.
I live in the Marlborough Sounds, and to protect the kahawai from being targeted will not say exactly where, but much to my joy I have been watching schools of kahawai come into the bay every day to feed. In my youger days, many people fished for kahawai for the sport only, and threw away or gave away the catch. It was regarded as ‘a poor man’s fish’, perhaps because other species were far more plentiful back 50 years ago. Why do we not learn and take evasive action from other countries who have already lost their valuble fish stocks from commercial overfishing? The answer of course is ‘human greed’, and we label ourselves ‘the intelligent species.’ Yeah right!