Crayfish to be tagged in attempt to stop illegal sales
Friday, 2 October 2020
Crayfish caught in the upper North Island will be tagged in an attempt to stem the tide of black market sales.
The volume of packhorse crayfish being sold illegally is suspected to be on the increase as the species comes into abundance.
Julie Hills, North Island executive officer for the Rock Lobster Industry, said anecdotal evidence suggests illegal activity is on the rise.
“Recreational and commercial fishermen have become great watchdogs,” she said.
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“They’re seeing a lot come out of the water, more than what would be going to someone’s home for a feed and unfortunately I think we’ll see more illegal fishery if we go into a really deep recession.”
To halt the illegal trade, Auckland businesses licensed to receive packhorse crayfish from commercial fishermen will tag the fish before they are sold on to restaurants, fish markets and shops.
This means all packhorse crayfish for sale to the public should have a white, numbered security tag attached to an antenna.
The tags are food safe, unobtrusive and the number identifies where the supply has come from.
As well as letting consumers know their fish has come from a legitimate source, the tags will allow easy identification of illegal catch for fishery officers.
Geoff Creighton, managing director of crayfish company NZ Red and chairman of the CRA 1 Rock Lobster Industry Association, said whether the suspicions were founded wouldn’t be known without tagging.
”There seems to be an abundance and that creates and opportunity for thieves so the tagging will help us work out the numbers,” he said.
“At the moment, compliance officers can go into a premise and ask to see an invoice but there’s no way to tie it to the fish. Because they’re live, that invoice could be six months old and have nothing to do with those fish.”
Creighton said anyone who saw an untagged packhorse crayfish for sale should ask questions.
Packhorse crayfish have a distinctive green colour and smoother shell than the red or spiny rock lobster more commonly caught and sold in New Zealand.
They are also the larger of the two species and have a minimum legal tail length of 216 millimetres.
The fishery has a total allowable commercial catch of just 40 tonnes and most legal fish tip the scales at about 1.2 kilograms, Hills said.
It is illegal to harvest females with eggs or crayfish that have recently moulted and have soft shells.
The tagging programme is a voluntary pilot scheme, funded by packhorse quota holders, but Creighton hopes it will become permanent and expand to the red rock lobster industry.
“The bulk of the packhorse crayfish catch happens from mid-October to mid-February in the north, from East Cape to North Cape.
“It’s easier to trial the tagging programme with a smaller fishery but if it’s successful, we’d like to see it go further.”