Counting days until guillotine weir gets chop

Otago Fish and Game Council volunteers rescued 218 rainbow trout from Quartz Creek, Wanaka, last...
Otago Fish and Game Council volunteers rescued 218 rainbow trout from Quartz Creek, Wanaka, last month. Photo supplied.
The Otago Fish and Game Council is looking forward to the day when the guillotine weir on Quartz Creek, near Wanaka, gets the chop.

When in use, the weir, on Mt Burke Station about 3km from the creek's outlet into Lake Wanaka, diverts all the creek's water away for irrigation.

Last month, after the creek was diverted, the council rescued 218 adult rainbow trout stranded in pools downstream, and counted 65 that had died.

A report to the council's meeting last month noted ‘‘numerous'' similar rescue efforts from the creek over the last 20 years caused by ‘‘excessive irrigation take''.

Council chief executive Niall Watson told the Otago Daily Times this week that unless there was a flood, many of the young trout that hatched in the creek's spawning grounds over the next few weeks would have no way of getting to the lake and would also die as pools dried up.

Mr Watson said the council regarded the rainbow trout of Lake Wanaka as a ‘‘nationally important'' recreational trout fishery, and Quartz Creek was one of a handful of tributaries suitable for the trout to spawn in.

‘‘It is essential that we look after those tributary streams,'' he said.

The council was looking forward to 2021, he said, when the station's right to take water - a mining right allocated during the 1860s gold rush - expired.

Water would then be allocated under the Resource Management Act, and Mr Watson said maintaining a flow of water in the creek, for environmental reasons, would be required.

‘‘We're looking forward to a time when there is a sufficient flow restored that fish don't get stranded.''Mr Watson said Quartz Creek was the only river in Otago where the council still ‘‘salvaged'' fish.

The station is farmed by Tim Burdon under a pastoral lease.

Mr Burdon has not responded to ODT requests for an ‘‘on the record'' comment.

Most of the fish salvaged by volunteers were about 1kg and 300mm long, and were released into Lake Wanaka.

The council plans to continue reporting to the Otago Regional Council on the state of the creek ‘‘as a precursor to seeking a minimum or residual flows to allow sports fish migration''.

Mr Watson said when the creek's water was allocated for mining purposes during the gold rush, no consideration was given to the environment.

‘‘But that regime is coming to an end in 2021 and in the meantime we are trying to do the best we can to minimise impacts.''

Mr Watson said it was difficult to measure the impact of the fish kill in Quartz Creek on the fishing in Lake Wanaka but ‘‘if you can get healthy, functioning streams providing spawning facilities then this provides the lake fishery with greater resilience''.

 

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