Caulerpa now in BOI

[K4309 261]

3 hours ago, Psyche said:

"About MPI
The Ministry for Primary Industries is helping to seize export opportunities for our primary industries, improve sector productivity, ensure the food we produce is safe, increase sustainable resource use, and protect New Zealand from biological risk."

Don't forget MPI is what used to be MAF. Think meat inspectors and certification of our meat for exports. Robotically follow a rule book, regardless of outcomes. Biosecurity NZ appears to be the sub-silo more responsible for this kind of thing.

In terms of fishing or anchoring bans in the Gulf, that is going to cause a lot of trouble. I would expect extensive ignorance and active disobedience. Other than media sound-bites, there is no justification for the level of control and loss of public utility. The sound bite is "boats have spread this by their anchor chains". The reality is the moon rises every day, causing tides to rise and fall, shifting billions of tonnes of water around the Gulf every 12 hours.

Who else here is into spear-fishing? If you look at any of the photos or video footage, you will see a pristine marine environment with a good range of biodivesity, exactly the opposite of what they say caulerpa will cause.

This current Stuff article has a photo of what we are told is this killer algae, but in the photo are 10 goatfish. Other than a tasty meal, goatfish feed on worms and snails and stuff in sandy bottoms, the exact thing they claim this caulerpa will kill off. Then NIWA did a swim though video of Bland Bay. Awesome visibility. Plenty of spotties, triplefin are disturbed by the camera and swim out of the weed. Ironically there are patches of fanworm, but eclonia are still present. I put it that if the cameraman wasn't on scuba we would see on video a wide range of fish and marine life.

If caulerpa was so bad, I'd expect to see scenes like kina barrens, everything dead, desert like landscapes with only this algae. But no, the footage show thriving ecosystems. What they are telling us does not match the reality.

[K4309 261]

1 knot of tide in North Channel shifts 35 million litres of water an hour.

To make some basic assumptions, peak tidal flow of 2 knots, and obviously slack water of zero knots, an average tidal flow over a day is probably not going to be far off 1 knot.

You are talking in the order of 840million litres a day of water flowing through North Channel.

But don't worry, it is us boaties anchoring that is spreading the caulerpa. Idiots.

[K4309 261]

MPI is going schitzophrenic.

The headline message is "No anchoring or Fishing" in controlled notice areas.

But, you are allowed to fish in one CAN area, but not anchor. In the next one down the coast you are allowed to anchor, but not fish. In the third, you aren't allowed to anchor or fish.

And it turns out you can anchor if you decide you need to. Or if you live there.

On the Barrier, you are allowed to fish, just from structures or the shore. At the Merc's you are allowed to anchor. But there is a complete ban on fishing. In the BoI you can't do anything. Unless you live there.

Confused? Refer to the link below. See if you can make sense of the rules and how it is set out.

I do like the 'If you need to" clause. This is the 'emergency' rule. But who decides if it is an emergency? The skipper (me) has sole and complete responsibility for the safety of the boat, and all those on it. Fatigue could be a reason to need to take a break. For the safety of the boat of course. I'd love to see a 'treaty partner' or biosecurity lacky stand up to a Coroner on what deems an emergency on a boat, and who is responsible for making that call. There is very clear case history for that responsibility lies.

Caulerpa brachypus and Caulerpa parvifolia in Northland | NZ Government (mpi.govt.nz)

[harrytom 644]

Like the idea of suction dredge.

[waikiore 399]

Kawau bay is the latest and the men from the ministry are taking immediate action haha. Wait, if we do get a summer here again I for one will be ignoring them and I cant see anyone else taking much notice.

[khayyam 71]

1 hour ago, waikiore said:

Kawau bay is the latest and the men from the ministry are taking immediate action haha. Wait, if we do get a summer here again I for one will be ignoring them and I cant see anyone else taking much notice.

You mean the north channel bits, or more besides?

[K4309 261]

3 hours ago, waikiore said:

Kawau bay is the latest and the men from the ministry are taking immediate action haha. Wait, if we do get a summer here again I for one will be ignoring them and I cant see anyone else taking much notice.

I love how they've known about it for 2 years, AND are taking immediate action....

Bringing some guys over from LA next month to give them tips on suction dredging. Shame they didn't get organised waaayyyy back when it was first found at Barrier.

If I thought banning anchoring and fishing made any difference, I would support the bans. I don't have a remote anchor winch, so naturally give my anchor and chain a full visual check every time I bring it up. And it is beyond me how fishing can be a problem. Other than all the techniques that don't touch the bottom (trolling, topwater spinning, straylining, jigging etc) fisho's don't want weed on their gear, cause you don't catch fish with weed on anything. The only common methods that contact the bottom are soft baiting and bait fishing with a ledger rig. Soft baiting you know straight away if some weed is on your lure, and by nature of the fishing you bring it up and repeat every 3 minutes anyway. Straylining and ledger rig fishing generally involve anchoring but again, it is not hard to check your gear.

MPI acknowledge that wave action tides and currents spread caulerpa. Given you have approx 840 million litres of water a day going through North Channel, they are day-dreaming if they think banning anchoring and fishing is going to have any impact at all.

Hopefully this time they will realise the futility of it, and the very high likelihood of general public ignorance combined with people just ignoring these silly rules. I really think MPI will struggle to get any level of compliance if they try to ban boating in parts of the Hauraki Gulf. Assuming that is, we get a summer this year.

[harrytom 644]

2 hours ago, K4309 said:

Bringing some guys over from LA next month to give them tips on suction dredging.

Seems simple to me, pump and water on retrieval goes through a big filter similar to what they use to pump water from sewage plant before water goes back to sea like at mangere,

[K4309 261]

1 hour ago, harrytom said:

Seems simple to me, pump and water on retrieval goes through a big filter similar to what they use to pump water from sewage plant before water goes back to sea like at mangere,

Yes. You will need a dredge about the size of the Mangere treatment plant to make it work without spreading more of it around in the discharge water.

That said, if this thing does go feral, its main problem is smothering everything. A suction dredge would be ideal to remove it from the sea-floor, allowing all the snails, crabs and worms etc to get going, and the associated fish to feed off them etc. If there is already wide-spread infestation of the caulerpa, manually removing it by suction dredge would mitigate the smoothering impact of it, keeping our marine biodiversity going.

All we need to do to pay for all of this is include caulerpa in the emissions trading scheme. Jokes aside, seaweed is the fastest way to sequester carbon. And I'm sure it will make a fantastic fertilizer. Suck it out of the sea, spread it on the dairy farms, win-win. Strewth, there could even be an export market for carbon neutral fert. The normal stuff has super high environmental impact. Especially that stuff we nick from that impoverished West African country.

[Waa1066 5]

some interesting info about the eradication methods considered, sadly also mentions “long term management plans to limit spread” (page 2) and the use of moorings to avoid anchoring…
 

https://www.gbiet.org/s/Technical-Advisory-Report-Biosecurity-NZ.pdf

 

apologies if already posted (it’s a long thread)…

[waikiore 399]

Laughable -when those that know how wide spread it is already will ignore it , and the rest in blissful ignorance will ignore it too. 

[K4309 261]

30 minutes ago, waikiore said:

Laughable -when those that know how wide spread it is already will ignore it , and the rest in blissful ignorance will ignore it too. 

I've been wondering this for a long time, how wide spread it already is. You have to remember how this was 'discovered'. A complete biology geek with over 6,000 posts to iNature posted photos of it at Bland Bay, which lead to it being recognised by Niwa boffins in their time off. But the Barrier locals reckon it was there for a good 5 years already.

At the same time, no one can work out why we are getting the milky soft fleshed snapper. It supposed to be muscle atrophy. Perhaps the caulerpa is already covering the worm beds the snapper feed on and it is already everywhere? It grows at depths the average snorkeller isn't going to get to.

Odd thing is the fisho's aren't hauling this stuff up on soft-bait gear, and aren't all rushing out to by weedless jig-heads.

[Island Time 1,235]

Now at waiheke https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/300941916/invasive-seaweed-detected-at-waiheke-island-divers-to-investigate

[Psyche 633]

[Island Time 1,235]

Nah, this one I reckon

[Psyche 633]

What is our political managerial class going to do now? I suspect there is going to be a lot of arm waving, reports written, articles in the press and vain attempts at doing something but in the end you cannot stop nature and you cannot prevent people from using boats and anchors in vast sections of coastline adjacent to heavily populated areas.

I strongly suspect that the more you look the more you will find Caulerpa, I am happy to observe no anchoring zones, clean my gear etc but I am not sure everyone else will for all time moving forwards

 

[K4309 261]

5 hours ago, Psyche said:

What is our political managerial class going to do now? I suspect there is going to be a lot of arm waving, reports written, articles in the press and vain attempts at doing something but in the end you cannot stop nature and you cannot prevent people from using boats and anchors in vast sections of coastline adjacent to heavily populated areas.

I strongly suspect that the more you look the more you will find Caulerpa, I am happy to observe no anchoring zones, clean my gear etc but I am not sure everyone else will for all time moving forwards

 

This concept of being able to stop or control nature fascinates me. A lot of people, including our govt, believe you can control nature.

At least with Waiheke the locals have stated ”We believe currents are one of the biggest vectors, along with boats and fishing gear.”

While it wouldn't surprise me to see someone from a govt department pass a law banning currents and tides, I think (hope) there is a wider acceptance that we can't control currents.

I can't see how fishing gear really spreads this. Fishing gear in this context being line fishing, lures, softbaits, livebaits, straylines etc. Nets and bottom trawling absolutely. There has been a substantial lobby to ban commercial bottom contact fishing in the Gulf, maybe this is enough to achieve that?

'Fishing' is a very wide category of activities. It occurred to me I twice fished in the no fishing zone north of Rangi this weekend. I was towing a trolling lure as I putted out to Woody Bay. Did it matter? I wasn't anchored in the cable zone, had nothing contacting the bottom, so what?

As for the anchoring ban, if there was clear logic and reason, and it was finite, more people would support and observe it. If it is just a knee jerk reaction cause there is no one else to cast laws onto (like trying to ban currents), then many more would ignore it, including myself. If they wanted to hit an area with an eradication project and need boaties to stay out of the way for a year, then yes. If they are going to close the east coast of Barrier and half the BoI indefinitely, then no.

[darkside 61]

5 hours ago, K4309 said:

This concept of being able to stop or control nature fascinates me. A lot of people, including our govt, believe you can control nature.

And of course you can. Farming springs to mind which is controlling nature all day long.

Stopping nature is also possible if you have the will and the money. Plenty of predator free islands to visit in New Zealand. Everyone said they had no chance with m.bovis but the end seems to be in sight.

Caulerpa will be much harder for sure.

[K4309 261]

1 hour ago, darkside said:

And of course you can. Farming springs to mind which is controlling nature all day long.

Stopping nature is also possible if you have the will and the money. Plenty of predator free islands to visit in New Zealand. Everyone said they had no chance with m.bovis but the end seems to be in sight.

Caulerpa will be much harder for sure.

Of course. If you want to define 'controlling nature' as getting a bull to shag a cow at the time of year of your choosing. And I'm sure you can stop the tide, as the Dutch built dykes.

But in the context of banning all forms of boating - which is what the rules entail - compared to stopping the spread of caulerpa on the tide and currents, I think you're being a bit optimistic in thinking you can control nature.

[Psyche 633]

Here's the latest update https://ministryforprimaryindustries.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=d&c=A69F0B75492A41C9&ID=4FF2609DCFAED0492540EF23F30FEDED&temp=False&tx=0&source=Report

and in summary the method to remove it is:

Suction dredge followed by broadcasting chlorine pellets then covering the area with a tarpaulin

Hand removal by diver

and some more depressing news:

Increase in exotic caulerpa area at Aotea Great Barrier Island

Recent NIWA surveillance has detected exotic caulerpa in several new locations outside of the CAN areas at Aotea Great Barrier Island. The new sites are on the west/south-west side of Aotea at Bowling Alley Bay, the Broken Islands, Shag Point, and the eastern coast of Kaikoura Island (south end of Port Fitzroy).

As these areas are not covered by CAN and rāhui conditions, we advise boaties and fishers to be cautious and where possible, avoid anchoring or fishing in these areas. In addition, always before moving to new areas, check anchors, anchor chains and equipment for any seaweed and throw any found back into the waters it came from.