A petition organised by a Cromwell fisherman to extend the whitebait season by four weeks has gone to Parliament with 3,500 signatures.

Trevor Hannah has been whitebaiting on the Mataura River near Fortrose for 34 years, and believes the last public consultation on the industry in 2018 was “woefully inadequate".

He approached Southland MP Joseph Mooney recently with his petition on behalf of whitebaiters in the south, wanting the season extended from August 15 to November 15, two weeks either side of what it was now.

Joseph presented it to the Petition Committee last week.

The ‘hybrid’ petition involved collecting signatures both online and in person, “because literally it was an up and down the river bank petition”.

The Department of Conservation sets the rules and has said since 2018 that whitebaiting was in decline, but Trevor believes there hasn’t been any actual hard evidence to support that.

“There is plenty of bait out there and always has been.”

There have always been different regulations between the East and West Coasts - those fishing in Southland and Otago have a slightly longer season, and there were more rules regarding the use of screens and stands on the West.

Trevor’s mate John Laughton, of Alexandra, has been whitebaiting at Okuru for the past 16 years and was annoyed he had to decrease his stand from 18m down to just 6m under new rules introduced two years ago.

“We do acknowledge that there are more fishermen out there catching but they are catching from the same amount of bait that we have had for decades.

“Mum and dad ‘baiters just want to catch a feed and spend some well earned mental health time on the river. Not everyone sells it,” Trevor said.

Joseph said the Petition Committee would decide next whether to invite submissions on the issue, then make recommendations on what to do next.

There were thousands of whitebaiters in New Zealand and 26 social media groups - including Kiwi Whitebaiters NZ (with 16k members) and South Island Whitebaiters (7.7k).

Andrew said he would like to see more research and investigation take place. 

“Let’s find out if the whitebait is actually in trouble, and why, then perhaps we could find the real issue and protect them properly.”

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