Delicacy scarce, expensive

Everyone knows money can't buy you love, and now you can add whitebait to the list.

A poor start to the Taranaki season has left the region's usual suppliers with empty shelves and prices of $128 to $140 per kg for the few fish that do find their way into a net.

Graham Putt of the usually well-stocked Mokau Butchery said his supply ran out once he sold the fish he had caught himself.

"There have been no great quantities caught. It's been very quiet. There was a few guys getting some on opening day but after that it's been pretty quiet," he said.

It is that silence which so delights Irish-born Stephen Shaw who hardly knew what a whitebait was until he bought New Plymouth's Fresha Food Store five years ago.

"That's the beautiful thing about the whitebait. It is a mystery. You just don't know. These days everyone is used to going to the supermarket and everything always being there but with whitebait, you don't know if it will be on the shelves," he said.

When it is, Mr Shaw said his price would be $128 per kg, the same as it had been for the last five years.

At Marinovichs it was expected to be around $130 per kg and at Mokau Butchery the little fish were going for $140.

Though the fish aren't yet running in Taranaki, it is these prices that have piqued the interest of the Inland Revenue Department which is set on targeting illegal income from whitebaiters in Western Southland.

Constable Steve Winsloe, of Tuatapere, said he had heard reports of whitebaiters living off benefits and earning between $50,000 and $70,000 in cash sales of the delicacy every year.

No covert operations to catch illegal whitebaiters are planned in Taranaki but DOC spokesman Mike Tapp said staff continually monitored the region's rivers.

- © Fairfax NZ News