Win for KASM, show us your snapper, the biggest show in town.
Win for KASM
Well done to the Kiwis Against Seabed Mining who have secured a court victory in their quest to halt seabed mining.
KASM had asked for information from Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), the company that has re-applied for a licence to mine iron sand from the South Taranaki Bight.
Last time round TTR’s application was rejected because of the sediment plume expected as a result of sieving thousands of tonnes of seawater through its machinery.
This time round, TTR offered a similar proposal but with new information describing a much smaller sediment plume, but didn’t explain how it would achieve that.
KASM asked for detail to be made public but TTR declined, saying it was commercially sensitive.KASM went to the Environment Court and has won the day.
If TTR wants to include this new information in its proposal it has to explain how it came up with the figures it did.
Submissions to the EPA close on Monday 14th November. KASM is now applying to have the submission period extended so the public can submit taking into account this recent information. Currently, around 8,000 submissions have been received from the public on this matter.
Well done, KASM.
LegaSea – Win for Kiwis Against Seabed Mining
Stuff – Environment Court rule seabed mining company must release blacked-out documents
KASM – Kiwis Against Seabed Mining
Show us your snapper
Are the snapper we’re catching getting smaller?
Scientists think the commercial overfishing of snapper might be resulting in the fish evolving to a smaller size.
Evolution would suggest that if all the big fish get killed off and eaten before they can breed then the smaller fish are more likely to have more offspring and their genetic traits will be the ones that succeed.
So the average snapper of today may well be smaller than a snapper of the same age and health caught 500 years ago.
Geneticist Dr Peter Ritchie from Victoria University will compare DNA from ancient snapper bones with samples from heavily fished modern stocks to determine whether the fish are indeed smaller at maturity than they would have been.
It’s an interesting idea, especially when you see commercially caught snapper being sold in Australia as “baby snapper” at $15.99 a kilo.
NZ Herald – Have we been making our snapper smaller?
The Biggest show in town
While we wait for The Catch to premiere in our cinemas, hopefully this summer, Wellington theatre goers can see The Biggest, a play about nothing much other than the Hauraki Gulf, the biggest fish and a bunch of mates having a yarn.
Fishing contests seem to be all the rage. Must see if we can’t take part in one soon.
We don’t get out much here at the FryUp so it’s good to know if we are dragged along for a spot of culture we might still enjoy ourselves regardless.
Stuff – Theatre Review: The Biggest
The Catch – Trailer
