Oyster company to end season early

11 July / Evan Harding

The main player in the wild Bluff oyster industry is finishing the season early with just 45% of its quota caught, citing multiple factors including “not that good quality” oysters in Foveaux Strait.

Barnes Wild Bluff Oysters, which has six of the nine oyster boats working on the strait, has decided to finish next Friday, two months before the season’s official end date of August 31.

Barnes general manager Graeme Wright said it had been a challenging season with numerous environmental factors at play.

This follows a couple of challenging seasons previously.

The decision follows Ngāi Tahu earlier announcing it was not fishing for the delicacy this season, citing ongoing concerns about the poor state of the fishery.

“We are seeing increasing bonamia disease, major weather issues ... and the quality of the oysters is not that good. For us, we have decided to give the system a bit of a break.”

Barnes’ decision to pull stumps early came about a month after the industry players had agreed their boats would stop fishing the main beds in the strait, to let the small oysters grow, and in the meantime fish in other areas.

Earlier this week, skipper of one of the oyster boats, Ricky Ryan, said there were “millions of wee ones” in the strait, but they were “just not growing”.

“We have had a month or so looking around, and while there’s some really promising signs, lots and lots of little ones, there’s a gap in the [number of] legal size oysters to put in the bin, and the quality’s not that good,” Wright said.

Wright said the sustainability of the fishery was top of mind. He agreed a lot of Bluff oyster-lovers would be disappointed, but added, The Ministry of Fisheries had been informed of the company’s decision and had been supportive, he said.

“It’s the right thing to do ... it’s a very special fishery and we want to ensure it’s managed conservatively.”

“it’s short-term pain for long-term gain, hopefully”.

Wright had been with the company for 29 years and it was the first time it had cut a season short. However, the fishery was closed for three years in the early 1990s and in the mid 1980s a season was shut down early, for very similar reasons to this year, he said.

There was no suggestion at this stage that the company, which had about 60% of the total quota for Bluff oysters in the strait, would not harvest in 2026, he added.

The annual pre-season survey of the Foveaux Strait fishery would be held early next year.

“At this stage it will be business as normal. We will go out on March 1 [start of season] subject to those surveys, and reassess as we go through.

It’s a matter of managing and monitoring the fishery, and the only way you can do that is by fishing.”