The threshold level at which Central South Island Fish and Game Council would recommend to the Minister a closure of the region’s sea-run salmon fishery has been defined.

Over the last few months, the Central South Island Fish and Game Council (CSIFGC) has established a formal closure threshold for its regional sea-run salmon fishery following careful deliberation across four separate meetings.

The 2026 Rangitata River spawning count has been confirmed at 222 fish — 22 above the new closure threshold — meaning there will be no changes proposed to sea-run salmon regulations for the upcoming 2026/27 season.

Setting a threshold that could temporarily close one of New Zealand's most treasured fisheries was not a decision taken lightly. The CSIFGC worked through the issue across four meetings. Those sessions brought councillors and Fish & Game staff together to examine decades of population monitoring, work through several regulatory options, and weigh up the long-term viability of wild salmon populations against the impacts any closure would have on anglers and communities.

Sea-run salmon populations on the east coast of the South Island have been declining for about 30 years. The 2024/25 spawning season recorded the lowest combined count across the three indicator rivers — the Waimakariri, Rakaia and Rangitata — in the history of monitoring. While angler harvest is not identified as a principal cause of this long-term decline, reducing harvest through fishing regulations remains the most immediate tool available to Fish & Game to increase the proportion of the annual run that reaches the spawning grounds and contributes to the next generation of salmon.

CSIFGC chairman Dr Andrew Simpson said it was not a decision they came to quickly.

“The council and staff spent a lot of time working together through population monitoring, management assessments and angler consultations. The weight of that process reflects how seriously we take our responsibility to this fishery — and to the people who love it.”

CSIFGC and the North Canterbury Fish and Game Council (NCFGC) jointly consulted salmon anglers and the wider public during the 2025/26 summer. More than 1000 responses were received.

• On average, anglers ranked ‘‘temporarily close the fishery’’ and ‘’reduce season length’’ as their most preferred regulatory options to increase spawning.

• Anglers’ preference for a temporary closure strengthens relative to other regulatory options when the hypothetical spawning population decreases.

• ‘‘Keeping the regulations the same’’ was consistently the least preferred option among survey respondents.

The council resolved that if the annual Rangitata River spawning count fell to 200 or fewer fish — about  10% of the historic average — it would recommend to the Minister that all CSI regional sea-run salmon waters be temporarily closed for a minimum of three seasons. Temporary closure was preferred by more than two-thirds of surveyed anglers at that level of spawning count. The Rangitata River is used as the indicator for closure decisions within the CSIFGC region due to the availability of long-term aerial live salmon spawning survey data.

“The threshold we’ve set aligns strongly with what anglers told us. When the spawning population reaches that critically low level, our fishing community has made clear their majority support for protecting the fishery over keeping it open,” Dr Simpson said.

Although the council welcomes this outcome, the salmon population remains at historically low levels. CSIFGC is committed to conducting annual spawning counts on the Rangitata River and will publicly communicate the results as they are confirmed. Anglers and the community will continue to be kept informed. — Allied Media