white pointers split community sustainability ......shark tourism operators, their impact on...

WHITE POINTERS SPLIT COMMUNITY

SUSTAINABILITY FOCUS OF CHINA SUMMIT

THE VALUE OF A SOCIAL LICENCE

6 | SEAFOOD NEW ZEALAND | VOLUME 23 NO. 1

COVER FEATURE

BAITING SHARKS WILL LEAD TO DEATH,

FISHERS SAYLocals say it’s only a matter of time before someone is attacked by the great white sharks that roam the waters around Stewart Island and are attracted by cage viewing operators. Tim Pankhurst reports

on an issue that has inflamed the community in the deep south.

When Stormalong Stanley appeared before a parliamentary select committee last December he got immediate attention from members of Parliament.

The Wildlife Act protects great white sharks but who protects paua divers? he asked.

He told the cross party panel of MPs making up the Transport and Industrial Relations select committee hearing submissions on the Health and Safety Reform Bill the operations of shark dive operators on Stewart Island were endangering commercial paua divers.

To illustrate his point he circulated a screen grab from a You Tube video shot by a tourist in a shark cage showing a seal-like dummy used to lure great whites to the boat.

The MPs agreed with Stanley’s contention the dummy also resembled a wetsuited diver.

The unregulated shark dive business emerged in 2008, with operators luring great whites, which were granted fully protected status the year before, to their boats with baits, burley and dummies.

Stewart Islanders fear this activity is conditioning the big sharks to come to boats and claim they are becoming more common and more aggressive.

While there was only one fearsome predator haunting the waters of Amity Island on America’s Atlantic coast in the fictional Jaws, there are as many as at least 25 in Stewart Island’s summer waters.

The Department of Conservation website warns: “Their (great whites) large size, habit of feeding on large prey such as marine mammals and their propensity to investigate objects floating at the surface by biting them makes shark attack a potential risk for anyone swimming, diving, surfing or operating a small vessel (such as a kayak) in areas frequented by white sharks.”

Stanley, chair of both PauaMAC 5 that encompasses southern New Zealand and the overall Paua Industry Council, put it more colloquially.

He told MPs that encouraging shark cage diving was akin to “running a stick down a fence with a couple of rottweilers inside and they suddenly find the gate’s open”.

Seafood New Zealand chairman George Clement felt similarly.

“If we bait the sharks like people used to bait bears we are going to cause trouble,” he said.

Newly-elected Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie, a member of the select committee, was alarmed enough to write the next day to her National Party colleague, Conservation Minister Maggie Barry, urging a review “into the management practices of the shark tourism operators, their impact on modifying shark behaviour and hence the safety risk posed to divers and whether or not granting a permit under the Wildlife Act is appropriate in these circumstances”.

But if Ms Barry was concerned she was not saying so publicly and kicked the issue back to the department.

A Stewart Island-led call for a moratorium while the contentious operation was fully assessed was ignored and on the following week permits were issued to the two operators and they were back in business.

The permits are good for two years. The conditions include a ban on

SEAFOOD NEW ZEALAND | FEBRUARY 2015 | 7

the use of decoys and feeding the sharks and restriction to one area at Edwards Islands, a muttonbird island immediately north of Stewart Island, although there is no explicit provision for monitoring.

On visiting Stewart Island it is soon apparent the opposition to shark cage diving is much wider than paua divers - the issue has polarised the entire community.

A letter in the Dec-Jan Stewart Island News (SIN) from Jill and Chris Fox details a frightening experience aboard their vessel Mareno when fishing for cod at the nearby Neck.

A great white leapt out of the water and thudded on to the railing.

“I just know there is really going to be a terrible tragedy that will affect all of us as Stewart islanders,” they wrote.

The SIN is edited and published by Jess Kany, who organised a petition against shark cage diving that was promptly signed by a third of the islanders.

Kany, who hails from New York, fell in love with the island as a tourist 13 years ago and then with Stu Cave, whose parents Helen and Joe own the South

Sea Hotel and Southern Seafoods exporting rock lobster to China.

The couple have two young sons and enjoy a commanding view out across Horseshoe Bay in a home high above the clear water.

But there is a constant reminder of the intrusion on their lifestyle that shark cage diving represents to them.

Edwards Island where the sharks are attracted to daily is just four nautical miles to the north.

“The point I was trying to make in pushing the petition is it’s not just the paua industry,” Kany says.

“This is our community. A lot of people signed because they’re parents.

“I’m a mother with two little boys and I was hoping they would be out in the water diving and swimming and water skiing and having a grand time.

“It’s a different feeling now. I’m speaking for my husband and others who grew up here. They’re gutted.” Kany says.

“I only circulated the petition locally and only for three days.

“I only put it up on social media and let people come to me.”

The response was extraordinary from people from all different walks of life.

Even people who work for DoC signed it.

Everyone has different reasons. Everyone uses the water, it is their playground and their office.

People are now concerned about getting in the water, about even getting in a boat.

“People say this is getting absolutely out of hand.

A great white leapt out of the water and thudded on to the railing.

Jess Kany, editor of Stewart Island News, is a keen fisher.


“I can’t see how the activities can co-exist.

“Either we become a shark alley, a shark mecca selling shark t-shirts and tea towels and all the rest, or we listen to the community.”

Kany does not find any comfort in the permit conditions DoC has newly imposed on the two cage shark dive operators.

“There is nothing evaluated there, no policing of it.

“It goes against everything that DoC stands for, it’s in complete contravention of the Wildlife Act.

“We know not to touch kiwis, don’t shine a torch in a penguin’s eye, don’t head out to interact with dolphins and whales in the bay and we’re told don’t feed the kaka because it modifies their behaviour.

“DoC is not only turning a blind eye to the shark attracting, they’re sanctioning it.

“We haven’t seen the level of shark aggression around boats before – the fishermen will tell you. People are saying that who have lived here for a long time.”

Kany had her own great white experience when boating with her

husband and friends a few years ago - a couple surfaced and came at the boat.

“My God, I get the adrenalin rush. But not in our backyard please.”

Ian Wilson, a sixth generation islander, and wife Pip have a huge vested interest in both tourism and the paua industries.

They operate the island’s water taxi and also have an accommodation business.

“This is a community issue, it’s much wider than the paua industry,” he says.

As a paua diver he is always conscious of the danger of great whites.

He once saw a freshly bitten seal go charging by with its guts hanging out.

He swung around and saw a large shape on the edge of his underwater vision.

“I was straight up on the rocks.”

He says DoC has failed to properly regulate and oversee shark cage diving.

“I felt DoC was never going to say no.

“They have issued permits for two years. Unless there is some evidence they are not operating as they are meant to, it’s just going to continue. It’s very hard to assess.”

He said DoC should have insisted on having observers aboard at the operators’ expense.

He questions why a dive site was approved that is so close to the township.

“Potentially it could end in tears but the operators won’t take the blame for it.”

Pip Wilson is bitter that community concerns have been overridden.

She was going to set up a paddle board business last year but has had to abandon that.

She says the local kids can no longer jump off the wharf without fear .

Her own son used to row out to the rocks in the middle of the bay and fish.

“You wouldn’t do that now. You just wouldn’t.”

Veteran fisherman Gary Neave says there has always been the odd shark hanging around the bay.

“Someone would go out with a line or a net and catch it but you’re not allowed to do that anymore.

“Most of the community here is opposed (to shark cage diving) because of the added danger.

Ian and Pip Wilson have a huge vested interest in both tourism and paua industries on Stewart Island.


Husbands and fathers and friends, it is putting them all in danger.

It’s become a conflict.”

He was not prepared to predict an attack would happen but that was everyone’s fear.

He was not usually a petition signer but supported the community one calling for a moratorium.

“It’s a tough one, opposing people who are trying to start a business up and have already made a commitment to it.

“But these fish are aggressive.

“I’ve seen a video of the local policeman in a wee fizzboat with a shark biting his motor.

“He pulled up the skeg of the outboard and it still came up and attacked it.

Hole moley, it’s a mean little video, I tell you.”

A boom in the protected fur seal population offered high protein for the great whites.

“It could be as the population of seals has boomed the population of white pointers has followed it.”

He said the “whiteys” were also known to take mollymawks sitting on the surface.

“Whether it’s from boredom of for fun or irritability, I don’t know.”

Neave began cod fishing in 1967 and his first encounter with a great white was two years later aboard Te Parera at the end of the Oban wharf.

He heard a splash, looked over the side and saw a shark that looked as long as the 32-foot boat.

The crew put a whole cod on a grapnel and threw that out while someone raced away to former whaler Bosun Huntley to borrow his harpoon.

In the meantime the shark hit the bait, straightened the steel grapnel and was gone.

On a subsequent occasion they were cleaning fish in shallow water in Mason’s Bay with another vessel when sharks appeared.

A large one latched on to a bait dangled beneath a buoy and Fossie Fisher climbed up on the wheelhouse with a .303 and fired a shot at it.

The shark let go but later that night either it or another monster was caught.

It was hung on the wharf at Bluff and measured at 19 feet 6 inches (6 metres).

Zane Smith is a 13th generation islander who began commercial paua diving with Stu Cave in 1988 at the age of 14.

He is regarded as a gun diver, renowned for diving alone in remote spots and spending as much as 12 hours in the water.

Until seven years ago, despite fishing all his life, he had never seen a great white.

Nor had many others.

They were elusive, the stuff of legend.

Now, he says, he could recite over a dozen stories from the past five years.

He says the sharks are becoming both more common and more aggressive.

“They are not a creature that is elusive any more. Now they will come right alongside the boat.”

The sharks are becoming both more common and more aggressive.

Jess Kany, editor of Stewart Island News. Edward Island can be seen in the background. Zane Smith, 13th generation islander and com-mercial paua diver.


Zane also nets butterfish and was at the centre of controversy last year when he accidentally netted one of the protected great whites.

“It is inevitable that somebody will be bitten,” he says.

“It certainly makes you think about the risk, it’s in the back of your mind a lot more.

“A major concern for me is I’ve been swimming off the beach here since I was very small, messing about in boats and then commercial diving without a care in the world about great whites.

“But now the school has cancelled some water events because sharks are coming into the bay.

“They are becoming afraid of the water and are not going swimming like we did. That’s upsetting for me.

“Great whites are quite an amazing creature but I’d prefer they remained elusive.”

He says the sharks are now getting fed and that is clearly altering their behaviour.

He rejects the argument put up by shark cage operator Peter Scott, himself a one-time fisherman, that the sharks have already learned to come

to boats because generations of cod fisherman have thrown guts and heads overboard when preparing the catch.

“The mollies (mollymawks) get the bulk of it and it’s in different places and different times.”

Brett Hamilton has been fishing for 40 years, since he was 10 out with his grandfather, and is another to have seen a marked change in white pointer behaviour.

“We never used to have these encounters and now we have them all the time,” he says.

He never saw a great white until he was 24 but now they come alongside his blue cod and rock lobster vessel “asking you for a feed”.

“They are actively seeking out boats.

“Some of them are enormous. You feel like jumping to the middle of the boat.

“The surprising thing is their girth. They are huge. It gets the old ticker going.”

He worries about his son Morgan, who is a paua diver.

“One of the biggest gripes we’ve got is these guys come in from out of town, don’t initiate discussions with the community and just set up.

It’s no wonder we’re a bit miffed about it.”

He says it is certain somebody will be attacked.

“A couple of years ago a great white had a go at a dinghy with a family in it.”

He says the sharks know the sound of the dive boats and could easily follow them back into Halfmoon Bay.

“They’ve got them well trained, you’ve got to admit.”

The number of great whites identified at Stewart Island is astonishingly high at 120 and rising.

DoC’s Clinton Duffy, an adviser in the marine ecosystems team and a highly regarded shark expert, has been tagging and studying great whites since 2007 and says his photo-id catalogue will likely continue to increase as new sharks are identified every year.

They are individually recognisable from their colour patterns.

The sharks range widely and from 2010-12 Duffy has identified between 29 and 42 sharks during two-week field trips.

In the last two years he estimates the numbers have been less than that at around 23 to 25.

“My feeling is that our research and the advent of cage diving has made people aware of how many white sharks are actually present around Stewart Island and they are actively looking for them and taking greater note of sightings now,” he says.

His impression is the sharks’ behaviour has not materially altered.

“I have not seen any change in the way they behave around the boat, particularly if there aren’t any baits in the water.”

But he also says “some of the sharks we have observed for multiple years demonstrate familiarity with boats and have clearly learned how to steal throw baits and will use a number of aggressive strategies to get them”.

On one occasion he saw a large female attack a boat – the Jester in 2007 when tagging at Bench Island.

The sharks know the sound of the dive boats and could easily follow them back into Halfmoon Bay

Stewart Island’s community settlement of Oban.

While the operators may not be welcome on Stewart Island – and don’t push their luck in choosing to avoid the South Sea Hotel, the community’s hub at the main Stewart Island settlement of Oban – the shark dive tourists are not affected by the tensions.

An assistant in the supermarket said the tourists were absolutely buzzing when they came in.

German tourists Petra and Stefan from Bavaria, who did not want to give their surnames, wearing shark dive t-shirts in the hotel dining room, said it was an awesome experience.

They said some bait had been thrown on a line and two great whites appeared.

With strong demand and a lucrative business, the operators are unrepentant.

Michael Haines’ Bluff-based Shark Experience and Peter Scott’s Shark Dive charge tourists as much as $630 a head to see the sharks close up or $400 if staying on the boat.

With six in the water and two observing that returns $4500 a trip.

Brett Hamilton, a local fisherman, has seen marked change in white pointer behaviour.

Specialist Fisheries, Maritime & Resource Management Lawyers

Hamish FletcherLLBFisheries/MaritimeMobile 027 220 [email protected]

Jon TidswellLLB BAAquaculture/CommercialMobile 027 222 [email protected]

Hamish.Fletcher LawyersYellow Pages House, 2nd Floor, 190 Trafalgar Street, Nelson 7010. PO Box 1673, Nelson 7040, New Zealand

T: 03 539 0210. F: 03 539 0215

Tim JeffcottLLB BALitigation/MaritimeMobile 027 552 [email protected]

Don TurleyLLBResource Management Mobile 021 064 [email protected]

Both argue that since Stewart Island fishermen have been tossing cod guts over the side for generations the great whites are already used to being fed.

Scott, who remains on the Federation of Commercial Fishermen executive, says the hit rate is 100 percent, the sharks always turn up.

He runs about 50 trips a year from January through to June.

One thing is clear in this clouded debate that has split a tranquil

community – the issue is not going to go away.

New Zealand First is taking up the cause and two of the party’s MPs supported overturning the permits at a public meeting at Oban in mid-January attended by 80 people.

Brett Hamilton sums up the mood of many when he says there will be an attack on a swimmer or diver or fisher by a great white shark.

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s when.”


NZ HAS A GREAT STORY TO TELL IN EXPORTING SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD

Food safety and traceability are high on China’s priorities for seafood, Aotearoa’s CEO discovered. Paul Elenio reports

Appalling air pollution in Beijing. Massive use of fossil fuels for building and development. Huge vessels dragging in tonnes of seafood to feed the masses.

The general media image of China, our biggest trading partner, in the field of conservation, the environment, sustainable practices and protecting the future is not a good one.

Yet it was Qingdao, China, that hosted the Global Sustainable Seafood Forum, a gathering of the industry’s leading lights and organised by WWF, the Marine Stewardship Council and the China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance.

Carl Carrington, chief executive of Aotearoa Fisheries Limited, spoke at the conference in November and was surprised at the high level of people who attended.

“My preconception has been that they were not interested in sustainability in China, that it was all about economic development. Yet two thirds of those who attended were Chinese seafood traders and there was a high level of government support evident,” Carl said.

Among those from outside who were there was the food and beverage manager for Hyatt Regency Hotels in the Asia-Pacific region with more than 50 hotels under his wing.

“He told us that Hyatt had made a global commitment to WWF that

50 percent of seafood served at their hotels would be sourced from sustainable fisheries by 2018. He admitted they were trying to implement it but the options for achieving it were critically limited.”

He also revealed that Hilton had made a similar commitment in their hotel chain.

Carrington says how to ensure that seafood is landed in a sustainable way is not yet clear but achieving certification from the likes of MSC or Friends of the Sea was the current “default position”. Over the next 10 years such certifications will be increasingly relevant – but New Zealand could develop its own high standards without relying on a third party.

Carl was encouraged to hear that China was putting much greater emphasis on food safety and traceability and being able to demonstrate credentials for achieving this was a big plus.

Carl says progress is fast in China and provides the example of Shanghai, China’s second biggest city and a destination for Air New Zealand. Ten years ago it was the construction capital of the world.

“Shanghai is changing at an amazing pace. They are investing in the environment, they are rapidly greening the city. Their development plans for the next 50 years shows heavy

focus on the environment, waterways, parks. It’s like Singapore on steroids.

“As wealth increases so the environment is becoming more important. Now it’s all about food safety, traceability and provenance.”

Carl says we have a huge opportunity to tell the New Zealand Story because we have high food standards which can be demonstrated throughout the supply chains.

In Aotearoa’s own business they have adopted Fishtail, a system that uses QR codes so that a consumer can track where, who, when and how the seafood made its way through the food chain. Fishtail is available to the entire industry and would enable industry to link to the development of the New Zealand Story, a marketing initiative with the focus on “open hearts, open minds, open places”.

Carl says that New Zealand enjoys a great reputation for its seafood, particularly paua (abalone), lobster and orange roughy.

The Chinese saw New Zealand as having an image and reputation for remarkable beauty and a safe place from which to buy food.

While the Fonterra botulism scare of 2013 had caused problems, the high level of commitment – “with the Prime Minister front-footing the issue” – had highly impressed the Chinese.


“We gained a lot of credibility for that. If the approach had been go to ground it would have been a lot worse. Having said that, we would not want to go through it a second time.”

Asked if the approach to our exports to China should change from New Zealand sending whole seafood to extracting greater value for it through processing, Carl said we are exporting our kai moana in the best possible way.

“Just because we are not processing our seafood does not mean it’s not value added. The Chinese get our seafood live and whole, robust and strong, or fresh chilled and even frozen, it is still very much part of the New Zealand Story and in fact can be the highest value add of all as it takes significant investment in supply chain capability to be able to consistently deliver high quality live or chilled product.”

“New Zealand needs to do a better job of marketing, to promote a powerful brand and some of the fisheries are looking at this. The danger is that our national brand is only as good as the weakest link.”

In his speech to the forum Carl said that since the 1990s Maori

“The danger is that our national brand is only as good as the weakest link.”

Carl Carrington says New Zealand could establish its own standards for sustainable seafood.

The China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Qingdao attracts visitors from all over the world.


have adopted a “strategic and somewhat aggressive approach to improving their stake in the New Zealand fishing industry.

“Within Maori everything associated with the environment and people’s place in it are inextricably linked and this belief is the foundation of our stewardship philosophy which is called kaitiakitanga.

“Interestingly these factors are now interconnected with the expectations

of tomorrow’s markets through growing consumer awareness of the importance of sustainability and protecting the environment in everything that we do.”

Carl outlined Aotearoa’s response to the demand for clear product traceability, quality and sustainability.

One of these, he told Seafood New Zealand, was joining the Sustainable Business Council and acting as a guinea pig in trials of new systems and processes. One of

these was an ecosystem review of the paua beds in the Marlborough Sounds which revealed the effects that climate change was having on water temperature and the degradation of kelp which is crucial to the survival of young larvae.

“That has opened our eyes to a problem which we have 10-20 years to deal with – it will challenge our ability to deal with it.”

The next stage is to work with the Department of Conservation, Ministry for Primary Industries and Ministry for the Environment on the problem.

Carl also told the forum about finding operational fisheries from waste, water and energy conservation.

This included maximising the value by using more of the fish, investing in research to identify the components that could be utilised for much higher value co-products.

Asked what he would say to some people who would say that fishers should not be working closely with NGOs like WWF Carl described that as “old school thinking”.

He said he found WWF NZ and Australia to be both pragmatic and supportive.

“Yes, they do push us in areas that we are uncomfortable in but as public attitudes and expectations lift then so, too, must our own practices along with our ability to communicate all the good things that industry is doing.”

Carl’s two ambitions are for the effective promotion of the New Zealand brand overseas and to build on the existing momentum that exists in collaboration across the fisheries.

The expo attracted 1189 exhibitors representing suppliers, non-government organisations and other interested parties.


CRISPY SKINNED GROPER ON WARM SALADSeafood New Zealand

Ingredients

Potato salad: 750g baby potatoes ½ cup capers, roughly chopped 80g cornichons (mini gherkins), finely chopped 1/3 cup parsley, finely chopped 200g sour cream sea salt and cracked black pepper Lemon myrtle vinaigrette 2 tsp Manuka honey ½ tsp Dijon mustard 1 lemon, zest and juice 2 tbspn white wine vinegar ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil ¼ cup grape seed oil 1 tbs lemon myrtle (use lemon thyme as an alternative), finely chopped sea salt and cracked black pepper

Fish: 1kg groper/hapuka fillets, boneless and skin on Canola oil, for frying

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

To make the potato salad, place potatoes in a saucepan and just cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Drain off the water. Once potatoes have cooled down and are able to be handled, cut each potato into 2-3 pieces. Place in a bowl and add capers, cornichons, parsley and sour cream. Fold gently to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and leave aside until ready to serve.

To make the vinaigrette, place honey, mustard, lemon zest, lemon juice and white wine vinegar into a bowl and mix to combine. Whisk in both the oils to form a smooth dressing. Stir in lemon myrtle and add salt and pepper to taste.

To prepare the fish, make sure the skin is completely free of scales. Do this by scraping it with the edge of a sharp knife. Rinse any scales away. Pat the skin completely dry with paper

towels. The skin must be dried out as much as possible before cooking. Cut the Groper fillets into 6 even sized pieces. Season the tops very lightly with sea salt and black pepper.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Use enough oil to thinly coat the entire bottom of the pan. Add the fillets skin side down and turn the heat up slightly. Weigh them down gently with a fish slice so that the skin is pressed against the floor of the pan. Make sure the fillets are spaced well apart. Keep cooking the fish another 2 – 4 minutes, until the skin is crispy. Flip over the fillets and turn off the heat. For thin fillets, let residual heat slowly finish cooking the fish for about 30 to 60 seconds otherwise finish cooking the fish in the oven for 7-8 minutes or until just cooked.

Place warm potato salad in the middle of the plates, top with crispy groper fillets and drizzle with lemon myrtle vinaigrette. Serve with a sprig of dill.

RECIPE


VETERAN FISHERMAN AND LOBBYIST HONOURED BY QUEENTed Collins has spent a lifetime looking for fish and lobbying on behalf of fishermen. Sophie Preece reports

In the early 1940s Ted Collins’ family would head to Picton on New Year’s Day with the young boy peering eagerly over his parents’ shoulders to catch first glimpse of the water.

“The sea always excited me. Even in those war days I would tear off to the big wharf on the west shore there, and try and catch barracuda, which came right in then. And I’d catch the odd blue cod.”

On New Year’s Day more than seven decades later, Ted’s lifetime contribution to the fishing industry and community was recognised with a Queen’s Service Medal in the 2015 New Year Honours list.

“You could have blown me over with a feather,” he says. “I thought I knew most things happening in the fishing scene, but I got caught there.”

The honour recognises Ted’s work as a foundation member of the Canterbury Marlborough Rock Lobster Industry Association in 1997 for which he served as chairman until 2012.

He has been a member of the Picton Fishermen’s Association since 1962 and remains its president and was also president of the Federation of Commercial Fishermen from 1979 to 1981 during which time he helped introduce the quota management system (QMS).

A MAN ON THE SEA

he got a fishing permit under the old licensing system.

“There were a given number of fishing licences in an area and you had to wait until somebody died or handed it in. I got word that one was being handed in so I applied and got it.”

That enabled him to commercially fish for butterfish and moki by net and cod and groper by hand-line and he’d still take a pot to get his recreational catch of lobster.

“It was pretty rigid. You had a port of landing and mine was Rarangi beach. One day I went to Rakautara, set some nets and landed and then next thing a fisheries officer was there and he gave me a heck of a rap over the knuckles.”

In retrospect he decided that was a bit tough, given the government abolished the fishing licence two weeks later, to change to a permit system, where the landing would have been allowed. That change, in 1962, allowed him to add all fish stocks to his catch and Ted started setting his sights on tuna and cray as well.

When he began working in a grain store shifts allowed him to fish before or after work each day.

“But when they went on to ordinary eight hour days I got up at 3am and

The passion stirred in a small boy at the edge of the Marlborough Sounds continued as he grew.

By 1950 12-year-old Ted would head to Rakautara, north of Kaikoura, to go fishing with his father and uncle who shared a little boat between them while they were cutting timber in the Blue Duck Valley.

“They used to set a net and catch a feed of crays. I went down there in the school holidays and I got interested in it.”

In his late teens he spent weekends fishing off the beach at Rarangi, Marlborough, with friends who had a little boat. So when his godfather, Arthur Wratt, left him 30 pounds in 1958 there was little question of how the 21-year-old would spend the money.

“I bought a second hand Seagull outboard with that and borrowed my uncle’s 13-foot dinghy.

Ted was working on a farm but had weekends off, from Saturday lunchtime to Monday morning, so would set out every second weekend, firstly from Rarangi and later on the new private road to Port Underwood.

When he started catching too many fish to eat or gift to neighbours

Ted Collins says he got caught out by his Queen’s Service Medal.

drove over the new road to Robin Hood Bay, did my 15 pots then came back over and went to work at 8am.”

He soon decided to become a fulltime fisherman to the horror of his mother who wanted him to be a respectable farmer, not a disreputable fisherman.

“’They’re nothing but drunkard layabouts’, that’s what she said.”

But for him it meant “freedom,” being his own boss on the sea he loved and making the most of his ability to find and to catch fish.

With no echo sounder it took instinct and nous to succeed as a fisherman.

“You’d throw a pot over and hang on to the rope. You’d drag it and feel it going across the bottom, then you’d come up against a rock and let it go where the crays were. You’d take marks, like ‘there, that tree underneath that slip’, and ‘over here, that point that’s

showing beyond another’. Your head was full of marks all the time.”

His wife, Gwen, was also concerned about him quitting work with the unreliable income from fishing less secure than the grain store wages, “but I explained that with fishing, when you have a good week you put money aside”.

With her concerns allayed, he bought a 22-foot fibreglass boat called Breeze and took to the seas.

“Once I put my mind to it and went fulltime there weren’t many weeks when I got less than grain store work.”

He moved from Breeze to Gypsy, a 34-foot boat that he fished for a couple of years, before a 45-foot boat, The Foam, came on the market, its owner telling Ted that he was one of the few in the port that would be able to make her pay.

He made her do just that for 26 years, during which time the sea very nearly took him when he was dragged deep underwater by his gear.

“I had the line baited up on the deck and was throwing the hooks over as it came out and suddenly one grabbed me in the hand and pulled me over and under the water. I fought my way back to the top and got a breath, but it took me under again and I realised I was in deep trouble if I didn’t get rid of that hook.

“The tide was running hard and while I was going down I got onto the hook and ripped it out of my hand. It tore that knuckle out and the finger was just hanging down there. It was either that or die.”

In the early 80s Ted had new boat built and named for his wife.

“Her name was May Gwendolyne, so we called (the boat) Gweny May – Gweny May or Gweny May not!”

Ted Collins kept coming back to fish on the Gweny-May.


A FISHERMAN IN THE CAPITAL

concept to the Minister of Fisheries, Duncan MacIntyre.

When the QMS became a reality in 1986 the fishery improved, he says.

“The catches were going down, the size of the fish was getting smaller - the economics weren’t good. There were too many boats going after too few fish was the cry. Once the quota system came in, there became a value attached to the quota and some didn’t have enough to make a living, so they sold it to others. Some got out of the industry and it reduced the number of boats by quite a bit.”

By that time, Ted was doing about 80 days a year in Wellington while trying to make a living on his boat and also spend time with his wife and three children.

“I was spread a bit thin on the ground at times.”

When he was home he would be with his children or making fishing gear, far from the drunkard layabout his mother had warned of.

“I proved her wrong and before she died she could see that I had freehold boats and a house and knew I didn’t drink very much at all.”

Friends in the industry tried to lighten the load by catching extra bait fish for him if he was away in the Capital during mackerel run but life wasn’t always collegial amongst fishermen.

In 1981 Ted got a job as a stand-in skipper on a Norwegian 40-metre deep-water long liner, bringing in more than 16 tonnes on his first outing. This at a time when few in the industry were happy about foreigners coming in to catch fish within the newly declared 200-mile zone.

Three weeks later they asked him to skipper her fulltime, and he worked the boat for two years, fishing north-west of New Plymouth up to the Australian 200-mile zone around Norfolk Island, along the Chatham Rise and heading south, 600 miles below Stewart Island.

The boat could shoot 14,000 hooks an hour and raised the ire of some.

At one stage Ted received a call from the fisheries control centre in Wellington asking him to haul his gear up and proceed to Port Chalmers to be arrested for fishing in an out-of-bounds zone down that way.

When they asked for an estimated time of arrival he explained that

By the 1970s the politics of the fishing industry began to draw Ted away from the water as he became involved in representative bodies, beginning with the local fishermen’s association, of which he was elected vice-president.

He was the association’s representative to the Federation of Commercial Fishermen and was sent to their annual conferences. Over a decade he was a “committee man” on that national body, junior vice-resident, senior vice-president and, ultimately, in 1980 and 1981, president.

It was during this time that Ted helped instigate the QMS which would revolutionise the way New Zealand’s fisheries operated.

It was getting harder and harder to make a living and Peter Stephens, from the federation’s executive, began to talk of a scheme to ensure catch effort reduction, says Ted.

“He said we needed a big round cake. Cut it all into little pieces, then give everybody a piece to take away and eat it as they wanted to eat it, when and how they wanted to eat it. But they can’t go back to the cake and get any more.”

The executive thrashed out the idea and Ted took the cake

Ted caught this 84 pound groper on a cod-line at Marfells Beach in under 10 metres of water. His son and daughter stand with the fish.

In his teens Ted would fish occasionally off Rarangi beach with friends who had this boat.


given he was 75 miles off the coast of New Plymouth, it was approximately 2 ½ days steam. He was able to have his position verified by a nearby naval boat, proving the allegation was a case of mistaken identity.

He eventually left the long-liner to come back to the Gweny-Mae and continue to look for fish and lobby for fishermen.

In his late 50s he was part of the process of devolving crayfish management to regions and was a founding member of the Canterbury Marlborough Rock Lobster Industry Association (CRAMAC 5) in his 60th year.

Cramac 5 executive officer Larnce Wichman has worked with Ted for many years and says the fishing industry has long relied on people like him.

“He’s been a stalwart of the New Zealand seafood industry for many, many years, and his knowledge base was an absolute treasure.”

After the management group was established Ted came to shore for five years, opening a fish shop in town while running a trawler and two cray and line boats which supplied his fresh fish.

“At that time I could see it was no good relying on other people for my fish supply. I used to go every night to get fish off them and have it fresh in the shop the next morning.”

But he was eager to get back to sea.

“I’d come home Friday night and say to (son) Pete: ‘Where’s the boat? Got any fuel in it?’ Then I’d head out on Saturday morning. Gwen used to call it sanity cruises.”

At 77, he’s no longer fishing, but he’s still got his feet in the waters as a lifelong member of the Picton Professional Fishermen’s Association, Canterbury Marlborough Rock Lobster Committee and the Federation of Commercial Fishermen.

“I’m still boxing along quietly there.”

“We needed a big round cake. Cut it all into little pieces, then give everybody a piece to take away and eat it as they wanted to eat it, when and how they wanted to eat it.”

Giorgio deGasperi, an Italian street artist who was visiting Picton in the 1980s, did this sketch of Ted.

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