Last month, Fish and Game raised concerns in the Otago Daily Times that the wetland it believed to be significant had been drained and the peat bog and tussock vegetation destroyed.
It also took a helicopter down the wetland to get aerial pictures.
As a result of those concerns, Fish and Game chairman Monty Wright and chief executive Niall Watson met regional council chairman Stephen Woodhead and chief executive Graeme Martin at the site of the wetland this week.
Mr Woodhead said at a council meeting this week the Cairn Rd site was completely different from what people envisaged from the aerial photographs.
"It is pretty firm ground where old man gorse has been mulched. It's not cultivated. It is not what I classify as a wetland; certainly not a regionally significant wetland."
He noticed the large machine mulching the gorse had not made an imprint on the land and there had been some ditch cleaning and maintenance.
The soil type and landscape meant the ability to drain was very limited, he said.
The wetland was on leased council-owned Kuriwao Endowment Land and the leasee was managing weeds and pests as he understood was his responsibility, Mr Woodhead said.
The leasee was also upset at the media attention.
Cr Duncan Butcher said this council had been publicly branded as not protecting the wetland from "rape and pillage" when all that was happening was a farmer removing what the council identified as a pest weed.
The publicity had led to a lot of emotive newspaper letters to the editor, he said.
"It upsets me that we have to go through this public criticism when it was not what it seemed to be.
"They might have understood better if they got in a car [to visit the site] before they went to the paper."
Fish and Game Council chairman Monty Wright said when contacted staff had investigated the wetland only after landowners in the Waipahi catchment approached them with concerns.
The council had serious concerns about the number of wetlands being drained and vegetation removed, he said.
It also wanted to find out if protection was available to wetlands under the endowment leases.
"There were a number of wetlands in our inventory done in the 1980s but a lot have already gone and are continuing to be chipped away at."
In this case it appeared the leasee had done a reasonable job of clearing the ditches and was prepared to fence off areas where wetland could regenerate, Mr Wright said.
"It was a fruitful visit and everyone aired their views."
Mr Woodhead said the issue had come up due to the council's review of its wetland provisions in its water plan to ensure regionally significant wetlands were protected.
That process would continue.
Chief executive Graeme Martin said as far as the council was concerned, there was no contravention of the lease or the Resource Management Act.
The Catlins area was complex, with a sequence of disjointed peat and moss bogs.
Potentially, some of those were regionally significant and some were "wet spots".
Resource director Fraser McRae said on the basis of a staff visit, the wetland did not meet significant wetland criteria.
Those that had been judged to be regionally significant would come back before the council before the draft plan change was publicly notified, he said.
