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December 2016
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Confessions of a Commercial Fisher By Graham Carter and Rhys Smith
The commercial fishing industry is in a very interesting time at the moment. They are in a state of panic as their PR machine steps up to portray a different picture. We are still shocked at the total interbred bloody-minded commercial fishers who have total disregard and for not taking any form of responsibility on the state of the NZ fishery. As Facebook becomes a never ending platform for recreational fishers to air their views on the commercial fishing industry we see disgruntled commercial fishers entering the banter in an aborted attempt to defend themselves. What happened to the Maui Dolphin? They were caught by commercial fisher’s. They are well aware when and by whom. Yet according to social media, a place where honest, sometimes heated and personal attacks that resemble that of Canadian Ice Hockey players, the commercial fishers are still in complete denial. A facebook post states that “we will kill every single one of them, so we can get our restricted areas back!” Is that the attitude of a commercial fisher that fishes sustainably? The recreational fishers and Green Peace are not even close to believing this rubbish from the commercial fishers. That is because these two lobby groups have the evidence and the numbers. Yet the industry and MPI continue to condone the killings. The question is why condone it when the commercial deny its happening? Because the MPI know it does, they have the evidence and choose to do little to stop it. But the truth is revealed as a MPI confesses that there were
700 Maui in 1978 and 55/65 now. So where did they go? We now see documents that indicate the MPI are now allowed for 145 Hectors Dolphin to be commercially killed. This is the new acceptable number when it should be zero. The Trident Cameras Systems have been an utter abomination as a means of enforcing compliance in the industry. How embarrassing is it for the MPI to have to confess that they had for one reason or another lost 80% of the footage. Does this mean that the footage was so damning to the industry that they had to deliberately lose it as a coverup. Somebody must have viewed it for this to happen? It would be interesting to see if the remaining footage has been tampered with! This happened just after Martin Dunne the Director-General of MPI had to confess on TV that the fishery side of MPI has made floored decisions, forced upon him by the Heron report. Poor Martin Dunne who came from a leadership role in some of the best ‘Special Forces Soldiers’ in the world, to trying to lead the undisciplined, unskilled party clowns employed by the MPI. Out of respect we will send him a face cloth and some soap to wash the egg off his face with, because it’s not a good look. It’s not a good look nationally or internationally as this level of incompetence in being viewed on the international stage. The observer programme is shocking to say the least, let’s hope they can save a shred of integrity for the commercial fishers and MPI. We have a quote from a commercial fisher on the ‘Ban Commercial Inshore Fishing’ Facebook page or
you could call it another confession: “we had observers on our boat and at least half the fish still get kicked over the side. So MPI don’t care at all. Not the trawlers fault either when you consider they have to pay someone to bring the fish back to land. Quota system not a good one.” The thing is he is dead right. The MPI don’t care they pay lip service to enforcement. The next little gem relates to the new ‘Tiaki’ wonder net. I refer to the PSH system of harvesting the fish alive and throwing back all the unwanted and undersize fish to live another day. Now that sounds really great and the industry received an innovation award for it, even though it was still in the trial stages. What the public don’t know is that they also have an ‘offal discharge system’ which operates through hull on the fishing boat. This allows the fishermen to high-grade and place unwanted bi-catch through this mincer. Even worse is the fact that Nathan Guy the minister approves of this cutter on the new boats. This is strange, for a boat that is so amazing and is meant to return unwanted fish to the sea alive, the whole purpose of this new fishing method. Oh dear! we have another confession that lets us in on the commercial fishers secret use for these cutters. Another confession on Facebook: “I worked on a sixty metre factory trawler in the southern ocean that had a sump cutter pumps installed dealing with unwanted fish (a very small part of the total catch) and offal for as long as I can remember, over 15 years I think”
This is a diagram of the new offal cutters fitted on all new commercial fishing vessels, fishing our inshore fishery, which can process up to five tonnes of fish out of sight, out of mind. You can only imagine the opportunities that this machine can provide for commercial fishers to be able to dump even more unwanted fish. Carl Carrington CEO of Moana NZ says “They will be able to dump all low value fish, down a shoot through the grinder. There will be no free lunches for the birds.” Again the commercial PR machine in full swing to cover the decimation. They will be able to promote this world leading initiative as an attempt to show they care for the sea birds! To compare the Southern Ocean
fishery to the inshore fishery of the Bay of Plenty is a bit ridiculous. Surely the people of the Bay of Plenty would want to stop this monster of a fish-killing beast hauling and munching up there local recreational fishery. No, because they have been sucked in by the PR machine of the commercial investors that say the ‘offal discharge system’ is for bird protection. If the cameras aren’t able show the dumping because they don’t work, or any damaging footage is lost and the observers are related to the three wise monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil and forget to write it down, the Tauranga fishery will collapse entirely. The race is on for the commercial fishery to kill every fish they can before the next election because
their mate John Key has had a guts full of being embarrassed by the industry when he is overseas, with more photos of dead Dolphin. He warned the commercial fishers at their own conference that they would have to get used to fishing in less water space. This is ironic from our ponytail pulling friend because he is the one who gave the commercial fishery the green light to pillage our fishery, when he gave the commercial fishers the mandate to double the export value of the fishery by 2025. Why?, because like all other politicians that don’t give a hoot it is a free product ready to be plucked by white collar elitist like him.
Christmas Gifts Galore
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