Reactions from Tony Orman
… 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 companies.
For fisheries advice Shane Jones needs to be listening to the likes of Tony Orman, not Vaughan Wilkinson who works for the big fishing companies.
When I lived in Tasmania (2019 to 2023) there was widespread concern about the concentrated contamination around fish farms in previously pure sea waters. Where do the fish farm promoters imagine all the waste goes?
The diseases present in the NZKS salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds since 2012, were already present in the Tasmanian salmon farms. MPI has not tried any eradication, the best they could come up with is a Controlled Area Notice for the Sounds, in place since 2016, in order to prevent the other salmon growing areas from contamination with the same diseases. Unlike salmon, the Sounds has a wild fishery for snapper, it is a much liked fish to catch. The last thing we need is all the problems that snapper farms will cause.
Better off to look after the natural fisheries a bit better than what it is now.
Just back from Stewart Island and after a trip to Big Glory Bay, was disgusted at the dirty water since salmon and mussel farming has taken off, before these farms existed the water was crystal clear and you could see 50 or 60 feet to the bottom and watch fish swimming about.
There are 2 sorts of political parties in New Zealand.
Labour, the Greens and Maori are the advocates of the people who have failed to better themselves and identify as victims of social and economic injustice that should be support by the efforts of productive working people.
National, ACT and NZ1st represent influential party members and funders who own and operate businesses and want to get richer from the efforts of productive working people.
Fish farming is another industry that can be developed to provide profits for NZ and global corporations.
It can also be presented as justifying government support and “investment” to “provide jobs and increase GDP”.
If allowed to live and reproduce naturally without excessive commercial exploitation and government regulation, there would be plenty of fish for citizens to catch eat and share with one another.
That does not generate profits for business enterprises and more tax revenue for government by forcing most people to have to pay for everything they need to consume to live.
What most people are too dumb to know about politics and governments is that they are always influenced by and to serve a minority of politically and economically elite individuals.
These two groups of people cooperate well because their ambitions are different but also complimentary.
The political elites want authority and power over the rest of us to control our lives.
The economic elites just want our money and property assets.
The sea around NZ and the fish that live there are actually COMMUNALLY OWNED BY THE PEOPLE OF NEW ZEALAND and that is a problem for the elites who want to exploit these resources for corporate profits and government tax revenue.
The influential racial “iwi” elite`s want a slice of the pie as well and will cooperate.
The ordinary working taxpayers can kiss the communal ownership of the marine resources and other assets goodbye because the political and economic elites have decided to take and exploit them for their own financial benefit.
Some of the “spoils” might even “trickle down” to the previous owners but don’t count on it.
economy economy economy, when are you humans going to realize economy is causing over productivity just so some can get rich.
ch 19
End sagacity; abandon knowledge
The people benefit a hundred times
End benevolence; abandon righteousness
The people return to piety and charity
End cunning; discard profit
Bandits and thieves no longer exist
These three things are superficial and insufficient
Thus this teaching has its place:
Show plainness; hold simplicity
Reduce selfishness; decrease desires
you humans slave away all ya life for nothing but a fake economy fake money.