University of Otago marine science professor Chris Hepburn lives in Hampden and spends a lot of time in Moeraki.
Te Rūnanga o Moeraki is seeking a temporary closure of the fishery near Moeraki, which would prohibit the taking of all shellfish including crustaceans from the Moeraki Boulders to the western end of the Moeraki harbour beach, an area of about 1.3sqkm along Moeraki Beach. The area reaches 500m out to sea from the high tide mark on the beach.
Fisheries New Zealand is now seeking public feedback on the request for the temporary closure.
Te Rūnanga o Moeraki upoko David Higgins told the Otago Daily Times this week a particular group of new migrants found the cockle beds in Moeraki and started harvesting the beds, taking cockles as small as 10mm.
Some of the removals were done with shovels, which disappointed the rūnanga.
He said the removal of this stock from the environment hindered the recovery of the cockle beds.
It was believed it was a group of North Otago people of Asian origin who removed the cockles.
Prof Hepburn said everybody had to think when it came to taking cockles. People had to be educated and respect each other.
He said what the group did was properly not illegal.
‘‘The thing is that there is no size limits ... so you can take whatever you want, really.
‘‘The beds are extremely sensitive and easily damaged by any harvest or digging. It really isn’t worth fishing there as the cockles are small, in very low densities and digging in the seagrass bed is damaging.’’
He said using a spade to dig out cockles allowed the sea to come in and wash the habitat away.
He said it was not an area people should harvest and they would be better off heading half an hour down the road to places such as Blueskin Bay or Waikouaiti.
Prof Hepburn, who has carried out research on customary and ecosystem-based fisheries management and fisheries restoration, said a lot of fishing was not illegal but it was also not good for the fishery.
‘‘If you go fishing every 10 minutes of the day and you have your boat and you rotate people in and out of fishing you can catch hundreds of fish. You’re still adhering to the law. It’s a challenging one.’’
Recreational fishing laws were not set up to protect habitat very well, he said.
Consultation on the temporary closure closes on April 20.
