Better times may lie ahead for trout left stranded in dried-up streams over summer, with policy changes mooted so they can be shifted to safety.
The Otago Fish and Game Council has approved a recommendation from council chief executive Niall Watson to develop a new policy on relocating stranded trout to yet-to-be-identified "refuge waters", in consultation with the Department of Conservation.
In a report tabled at the council's latest meeting, held in Dunedin on Saturday, Mr Watson noted that the "prolonged dry spell" over the Christmas holiday period had resulted in some small streams going dry.
In turn, this meant some fish had been stranded, and had died.
Fish and Game had traditionally not tried to salvage small juvenile fish from streams that dried up because this would involve "a huge commitment of time".
Exceptions were streams such as Quartz Creek at Wanaka where stranded fish were large spawning rainbow trout, he said.
Advice to the public had usually been that moving fish without permission breached the Conservation Act, but it was clear that people in local communities, when "confronted by stranded fish", often tried to rescue them anyway.
Such actions risked damaging "discrete populations" of rare native galaxiid fish, depending on where the relocated trout were put, but trying to enforce compliance orders was unlikely to succeed.
"As an alternative, it is suggested that designated refuge waters be identified in catchments where streams are prone to running dry," he said.
In that way, salvaging fish from within a catchment and putting them into a designated refuge area, such as at a dam within the same catchment, would have already been approved by Fish and Game and Doc.
"This is a more pragmatic approach and initial discussions with Doc suggest they would support it," he said.
Trout strandings had been caused by an "over allocation of water to out of stream uses" by way of mining privileges, sometimes in combination with natural stream flow characteristics.
Fish and Game efforts were mainly focused on remedying the situation through the setting of "minimum or residual flows".
Mr Watson said in an interview that the new policy had yet to be developed, in consultation with Doc, but offered a good way of saving stranded fish, providing a positive outlet for community concerns, and avoiding ecological damage caused by putting trout in the wrong place.
