23 April 2012
This afternoon the Executive Director of SA Fisheries and Aquaculture Professor Mehdi Doroudi presented to a combined KI Council and NRMB gathering, briefing us on the general status of fish stocks in the ocean surrounding KI.
This proved to be a confident and professional presentation and was based on collated data over some 30 years. In general, it indicated that virtually all stocks were at or near their objective levels and were being managed well; the possible exception may be that King George whiting may be down a little of the last few years but this was not yet a concern.
Fisheries and Aquaculture has all the authority it needs to manage these stocks at similar objective levels well into the future, and possesses the authority if ever needed to be able to completely close all SA waters to fishing.
This presentation followed a presentation to Council by Bill Haddrill (DENR KI – Dep. of Environment and Natural Resources – Kangaroo Island) several weeks ago when he had indicated that he saw little problem/concern at this time about the interactions between little penguins, NZ fur seals and fish stocks, but was unable to fully answer questions council had on this, because some of the information and science about this issue was the responsibility of SA fisheries.
I put the following specific questions to Professor Doroudi:
Q1. Is there any evidence other than speculation, that NZ fur seal populations on KI are unnaturally high.
Answer: No.
Q2. Have you any evidence, other than anecdotal, that NZ fur seals are having deleterious effects either on fish stocks or Little Penguins. If there is, what is this evidence?
Answer: There are reported increased incidents of these seals raiding open sea farmed fish pens in SA. The seals are known to be aggressive predators, but there is no significant evidence. A study would need to be undertaken to determine if this was the case.
Q3. Is there evidence that controlling seal numbers through a cull, will have beneficial effects on either fish stocks or Little Penguin numbers?
Answer: No.
Professor Doroudi, went on to state that there was no need for Marine Parks and Sanctuary Zones to control and properly manage fish stocks. The need for Marine Parks and Sanctuary Zones are for biodiversity reasons.
Graham Walkom
Kangaroo Island councillor