KINGFISH GO WILD - Update 10

Well this is truly shaping up to be shared fisheries project as the donations to make this all happen start coming in. My apologies, for being offline for most of the past week as this was unfortunate. In saying this my thanks goes to all who covered for me. Please keep those donations coming in as we are now in the business of paying our bills. The expensive part, not only do we have to pay for the fish to save them and give them a chance of freedom in the wild. The bill for the tags has arrived, as will all the other ones associated with making this project a success. My thanks to all the clubs who have rallied support and the many companies and individual fishers who are all contributing. Of note is the support from Eric and Angela the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club caterers who when belatedly asked for assistance to provide some catering on the barge said leave it to us. My thanks to all of you.
A special thanks must go to the staff of NIWA and our anchor sponsor Sanford Limited. These folk have been just fantastic in their support in more ways than one.

Today NIWA scientists and staff from the Parengarenga Fishfarm along with an enthusiastic bunch of local children tagged over 1200 kingfish in preparation for loading along with a whole lot of their naked mates who sport no tags. These will be loaded in to the special NIWA kingfish transport tanks tonight and will leave at around 2300 to be in Half Moon Bay in Auckland at 0700 Tuesday morning.

From here the truck will be loaded onto the Waiheke Shipping’s barge the Port Kennedy which will transport them and all our helpers out to the Noises Island for the first release into the Hauraki Gulf. This site was chosen for its unique habitat and that the fish will be able to migrate once they start to mature further afield.
To officiate in the release will be the Minister of Fisheries the Hon Jim Anderton who will be joining us in the Hauraki Gulf. Also present will be media and television coverage, this is something special, something not done before. A shared project of which we can all be proud of.

Kingfish go wild has been given the blessing of local iwi and we acknowledge this support. This we believe is important, as it is all part of giving something back. It is only because of the support of both recreational and commercial fishers that we have been able to put together this joint project.

The truck from Lawson Transport will be carrying fish ranging in size from 600grms to 900grams with a few good looking larger fish to help establish a size range in the school. Around 30% will be sporting the unique www.kingfishgowild.co.nz www.kingfishgowild.co.nz tags which have been specially imported from Australia for these fish. Our normal yellow sport fishing tags with the large stainless spade was not suitable for this task due to the small size of the fish.
Further releases will take place this week on the north east coast with the larger fish travelling the least distance to the release sites. I must acknowledge to support from the northern clubs who are researching the northern release sites. Thanks team.

As we have said before this is a one off opportunity to release a significant number of juvenile kingfish into the wild as their own schools along with tagged members to determine whether they will stay local and enhance local fisheries. Traditionally most fish tagged by fishers are larger and in small numbers in more off shore waters. The information we gain from this exercise may prove invaluable in the future.

We hope to have some more photos up on the site shortly and I thank our web masters for their patience and support.

Tomorrow the weather god looks like he to will give us his blessing as we watch kingfish go wild.

Regards all

Keith Ingram

NEXT >>>>>>>