Commercial eel ban urged

A Massey University ecologist has called for a ban on the commercial harvesting of longfin eels, and he has iwi support. JILL GALLOWAY reports.

Massey ecolgist Mike Joy says not enough is known about eel reproduction and survival, and the Ministry of Fisheries should have erred on the side of caution in setting the allowable catch.

He wants a ban on the commercial harvesting of longfin eels as soon as possible.

Dr Joy, who lectures in environmental science and ecology, says most of the North Island iwi have agreed and they are waiting for Ngai Tahu's response from the South Island.

"The Ministry of Fisheries is not very happy about our call for a ban. They are meant to be protecting the fishery and we don't think they are."

He says all the science shows the longfin eel fishery is getting worse.

"You've got a declining fishery, where they catch fewer and smaller eels. They have each year for the past 30 years. "

The ministry can't model the eels the same way it does with ocean fish that breed each year, because the eels spawn only once, at the end of their lives.

"They can't model these fish, because they set the quota based on last year's catch. So they work out the allowable catch based on the three years before," he says.

"Of course, it under-shoots. There are fewer eels caught than the total allowable catch each year. The reason they're not catching enough eels is because there are not enough out there."

Dr Joy says there is a mass spawning in the Tonga Trench at sea.

"There has to be a minimum number of eels to find each other, survive predation and spawn.

"There has to be a crucial number and we don't know what that is. We won't know it until the population crashes. The eels could become extinct."

New Zealand might be at that crucial number already and not know.

"If there are too few eels, they won't find each other, and the population will crash. None of the fisheries models or threat rankings take that into account."

Dr Joy is spokesman for the Tuna Recovery Group, a collaboration between researchers at Massey and Te Waanaga o Raukawa, based in Otaki, which looks at fish stocks.

He has written a discussion paper calling for an eeling ban on Forest and Bird's web page.

"There's a huge amount of support. It's just trying to direct it somewhere useful." He hopes this will bring about a change in the ministry's attitude to commercial eeling. There has been no response from eeling businesses.

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