Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
The Kaikōura pāua fishing season gets under way this weekend with new rules and daily catch limits in place to protect the fishery.
It reopened in December last year, six years after stocks were almost destroyed during the 2016 earthquake.
Seafood New Zealand said the first season back was a disaster, with recreational fishers taking 42 tonnes of the shellfish in three months - more than the commercial and customary take combined and more than eight times the recreational allowance.
With the season starting this weekend and running through till 15 June, the Ministry for Primary Industries has introduced new limits.
This season the area from Marfells Beach to Conway River will be open for people to gather up to a daily limit of three ordinary blackfoot pāua and three yellowfoot pāua per gatherer per day.
The minimum size for blackfoot pāua is 125mm and for yellowfoot pāua, 80mm.
Within the Oaro-Haumuri Taiāpure on the coast south of Kaikōura the daily limit was reduced to two blackfoot pāua with a larger minimum size of 135mm, people can also take only two yellowfoot pāua from this area with a minimum size of 80mm.
Fisheries New Zealand regional compliance manager Howard Reid said the fishery recovered well, but people need to exercise caution to ensure there are enough pāua in the water for current and future generations.
"The fishery is critically important to tangata whenua and the local community, so we are taking a precautionary approach by reducing catch limits.
"Fishers actively gathering pāua can take their daily limit only. A person cannot take a daily limit on behalf of another person or top up the catch of someone else. Fishery officers will be strictly enforcing this rule."
Reid said officers will also be carrying out a survey to provide information about peoples catches.
"This information, as well as in-water surveys of the pāua stocks, will help determine what the future of the fishery might look like including what further measures are needed to keep the pāua healthy and thriving."
Fisheries New Zealand was also reminding all fishers they cannot harvest pāua from the Hikurangi Marine Reserve and the Waiopuka Reef area.
Additionally, there were four customary fisheries management areas where pāua fishing is prohibited: Mangamaunu Mātaitai Reserve, Oaro Mātaitai Reserve, Te Waha o te Marangai Mātaitai Reserve and Te Taumanu o Te Waka a Māui Taiāpure.
Seafood New Zealand welcomed the changes, and said the industry was delighted these protections are being instigated, particularly the strict recording of recreational catch, which was the only way to ensure overfishing does not occur.
The group said in a statement it would be heartening if this same approach was made to recreational catch in other important fisheries, something the commercial industry and the scientific community have long been asking for.