Tony Orman: Shane Jones’s snapper farming proposal ‘full of fish hooks’?

… fish farming is capital intensive, high risk and only marginally economic. –American fisheries expert

Fish farming — injudicious and flawed

A proposal by Fisheries Minister Shane Jones for the farming of snapper has been described by an outdoor recreation organisation as “injudicious and flawed”.

Tony Orman, past chairman of the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations and the New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council, says fish farming was no substitute for proper management of the wild sea fishery.

“Besides fish farming to quote the words of a top American fishery hatcheries expert, some time ago, is that fish farming is capital intensive, high risk and only marginally economic,” he says. “The comment was made at the time, relative to trout farming proposals for New Zealand.”

Fisheries Minister confident of success

In a recent statement Fisheries minister Shane Jones said a new project to breed ‘super’ snapper, more resistant to disease, and that would grow faster and thrive in warm water could help drive more economic growth through aquaculture.

However, Tony Orman says snapper farming had been tried in the Pelorus Sound in Marlborough, but it failed and the captive fish, in poor condition, had to be released. “Likely is the minister isn’t aware of this failed fish farming venture. It was found the snapper did not grow fast enough and suffered in the poor conditions, so within two years they pulled the plug and let all the snapper swim away.”

“The feed conversion factor for snapper is 2.9, (i.e. for every kilogram of flesh produced, it takes 2.9 kg of food) which is greatly below the growth rates of 1.2 for Atlantic salmon or the 1.8 for King salmon”, he says.

If the food for fish farms is coming from the sea, there is potential problems for the ecosystem’s food chain with mass removal of small herrings, sprats etc., to feed the artificial snapper rearing.

Issues with King Salmon fish farming

Tony Orman says the minister probably acting on departmental advice, has championed the 50 percent foreign owned King Salmon’s fish farming in the Marlborough Sounds. However, Minister Jones seems unaware of King Salmon’s problems which reflected the “high risk” character of fish farming.

Fish deaths have been high from King Salmon’s operations and tonnes of dead fish are dumped monthly at the Blenheim rubbish depot.

Tony Orman says initially he tried to get the tonnage figures from the Marlborough District Council. “My request for figures was refused on the flimsy grounds of ‘commercial sensitivity.’ So I asked the Ombudsman to investigate, who ordered the local council to release the figures,” he says.

Ngai Tahu salmon farm flopped

On economic grounds, Tony Orman says a major weakness in fish farm proposals is the economics. Past fish farm ventures have invariably struggled due to the high risk of disease due to over-crowding as fish farms try to squeeze any profit be it small, out of operations.

He reiterated that in the Pelorus Sound, one of the two major inlets of the Marlborough Sounds, a snapper farm was set up, reportedly by Ngai Tahu Seafoods. The venture failed and thousands of poorly conditioned snapper had to be released into the wild open habitat.

Corporate fishing firms exerting undue pressure

For New Zealand to compete against other countries fish farm production, such as Norway, much closer to population markets, is a difficult task.

“Instead forget the flawed fish farm idea and focus on getting New Zealand’s natural fishery harvesting unshackled from the monopolistic quota management system, dominated by the big corporate companies,” he says.

In conversation a few years ago, with a Ministry of Fisheries scientist, Tony Orman was told a major obstacle to getting proper management was the strong political influence of corporate fishing companie

Tony Orman, once a town and country planner, is now a part-time journalist and author. This article was first published HERE