Hello all

What a lovely weekend to go boating. In saying this progress has been made with a few more donations came in from fisho's who care. Thanks fella's

We now have a web site up and running and while it is work in progress please encourage any one who wants to find out what we are doing to visit www.kingfishgowild.co.nz.

Now I would like to put some concerns at rest and ease a bit of ill informed scuttlebutt to bed. No the farm has not gone broke because of a disease wiping them out. If this was the case we would not be trying to save fish from the cray bait bins.

The facts of the reasons are clearly spelt out in an article published in the Northern Advocate as follows.

Maori fish farm collapses under debt mountain
 - NORTHERN ADVOCATE               Thursday June 8, 2006

A kingfish farm set up by Maori in the Far North two years ago
is folding with debts of $7.6 million.

Parengarenga Fish Farm is shutting down the operation it
established by the Parengarenga Harbour, citing financial
troubles and constant problems with its land-based aquaculture
plant.

The closure has caught many of the 2500 shareholders by
surprise. Until recently the fish farm, a Parengarenga
Incorporation subsidiary, had been hailed as a prime example of
Maori economic development in the North.

Incorporation chairman Winiata Brown, of Te Kao, told
shareholders that the venture had attracted too few investors,
the plant built by IAA of Denmark had design faults, and
ongoing costs were exorbitant.

"Legal action against IAA must be taken in Denmark under
Danish legal jurisdiction and we simply do not have the
resources to initiate or maintain such action," he said.

A funding shortfall due to a major investor withdrawing when
Parengarenga Fish Farm was established had caused concern.

In 2004 the Bank of New Zealand, which had loaned it $7
million to get the venture started, had introduced consultants
PricewaterhouseCooper to the company to produce models
showing its financial viability.

After finishing the models, PricewaterhouseCooper had spent a
year seeking investors, but found none. Last December the
consultants had exited t "leaving us with the original problem",
Mr Brown said.

Parengarenga Incorporation is understood to have assets of
more than $30 million, including the Te Rangi, Te Paki and
Paua stations in the Far North, forestry developments and an
oyster farm. These were put up as collateral for the $7 million
loan, which was being transferred from the fish farm company
to the incorporation.

"The loan restructure involves repayments over a 20-year term
by the incorporation, which at this stage requires a monthly
payment to the bank of $74,427 which comprises interest and
principal," Mr Brown said.

"Over time the incorporation has also contributed $7.6 million
for establishment and operational costs of the fish farm."

Parengarenga Fish Farm creditors were also owed $600,000,
which Mr Brown said had to be paid to avoid the company
being forced into liquidation.

IAA had claimed its aquaculture plant would produce 600
tonnes of fish annually, but now conceded it would produce
only up to 400 tonnes, he said.

Last year's fish was sold at good prices, but the combined
effects of insufficient working capital, ongoing plant failures and
spiralling costs had overtaken the business, he said.

However, Auckland shareholder John Yates said management
of the farm had been abysmal. He claimed that the
PricewaterhouseCooper bill had been $700,000, which was
"extraordinary", and he wanted to know why the plant
construction contract had gone ahead with dispute procedures
that had to be settled in Demark.

Mr Yates noted that the $7 million loan restructure on the terms
specified by Mr Brown appeared to involve repayments
totalling $17.8 million.

Niwa chief executive Rick Pridmore said the fish farm's closure
would not affect operations at Ruakaka, where about 200,000
kingfish bred annually would go to Marlborough Sounds
clients.

Niwa aims to produce 1 million juvenile kingfish a year for the
finfish farming industry in New Zealand.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE

Juvenile Kingfish


I see no mention of a disease in this except the possibility of a financial one.

From what I understand the problem is that the guarantees given by the Danish suppliers of the plant as to its output production has not reach this level along with ongoing equipment problems, which effectively means the plant cannot deliver the budgeted production expected and these reduced financial returns have not proving viable. The staff on the farm are very skilled and trained in the system and are equally devastated by this out come. The fingerlings supplied from NIWA are all from its own brood stock taken from the wild and are continually monitored for diseases. Although to be sure to be sure! we are having tests and inspections carried out before we commence releasing any fish into the wild. We understand that the farm is still selling fish to the export chilled fish market internationally which is great, as such these fish are monitored for a range of diseases and parasites and to date all result have been clear.

For a bit of History on the kingfish breeding program I have taken some extracts from issue 11 of New Zealand Aquaculture magazine. See www.nzaquaculture.co.nz. Courtesy Dr Michael Bruce Phd. NIWA.

Kingfish are a real alternative

In 2005/2006, the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research's aquaculture centre achieved a New Zealand first when it produced commercial quantities of yellowtail kingfish fingerlings to customers in Northland and the Marlborough Sounds."With the supply this season of 212,000 fingerlings (finger-sized juvenile fish), NIWA has done its job by developing a sound research concept into a viable commercial undertaking," says Andrew Forsythe, the manager of NIWA's Bream Bay Aquaculture Park.

Kingfish is the first of several high-value species that NIWA anticipates launching onto the New Zealand aquaculture scene, and already others are emerging, such as paua and hapuku.

NIWA recognised early on that the global demand for seafood products shows a marked increase from year to year, driven in part by the rising world population and the growing body of evidence that there are real health benefits from eating seafood. The periodic emergence of scares associated with the safety of other sources of protein only serves to further fuel the insatiable global appetite for more seafood.  Because of this, aquaculture has become the fastest-growing global food sector. In New Zealand we have benefited directly from this, with our annual export revenue from aquaculture currently standing at around $265 million. It is dominated by high-volume, high quality but moderate-value products such as Greenshell mussels, Chinook salmon and Pacific oysters.

The challenge

Learning how to cultivate new species is a risky business, requiring a large investment in infrastructure and expertise. This risk can be more than most private companies are prepared to shoulder. NIWA understood this and drew up plans for a purpose-built facility to take on that risk.
NIWA's mission was to establish a world-class facility with the capacity to develop new shellfish and finfish species for commercial production. The Bream Bay Aquaculture Park, built in Northland in 2001, serves four important functions for the New Zealand aquaculture industry.

The park:
* provides a national centre for aquaculture to carry out public good science in order to extract higher value from our aquatic resources
* carries out targeted commercial research with industry partners to support and develop existing aquaculture
* provides products, services and space to support fledgling commercial aquaculture enterprises, allowing them to explore new opportunities that would otherwise be considered too high risk, and
* provides a unique forum in which scientists, industry, and Maori groups can work together to rapidly advance new high-value species for commercial aquaculture production.

The first of these high-value species identified as an excellent candidate for aquaculture was the yellowtail kingfish Seriola lalandi, a large marine fish highly prized by recreational fishermen, but whose commercial fishery is small, seasonal, and unpredictable.

NIWA's 200,000 plus fingerling production success this season has been achieved through careful research into kingfish physiology, nutrition and reproductive biology, and the continuous refinement of husbandry techniques. In the last year, NIWA has improved larval survival by five to 10-fold, and overcome husbandry problems to consistently produce high-quality fingerlings.

NIWA is now able to tailor the production of fingerlings to fish-farmers' needs by manipulating the spawning cycles of the three wild-caught broodstock.

"These fingerlings are as good as the hatcheries in South Australia, which have had considerably more experience," says Kent Inglis, the managing director of Island Aquafarms Ltd. "Growth rates are good, with the most recent fingerlings we received growing from 5g to 70g in just 40 days."
Kingfish is the first of several high-value species NIWA anticipates launching onto the New Zealand aquaculture scene. And through its aquaculture facilities at Bream Bay, Mahanga Bay and Silverstream, NIWA will continue to collaborate with the aquaculture industry to commercialise other emerging species, such as paua, and increase the quality, quantity and value of existing aquaculture products.

The future

The success with kingfish represents a significant breakthrough for the New Zealand aquaculture industry, as this is the first time a truly marine finfish has been cultured in New Zealand. NIWA's production of fingerlings is providing the platform for the development of an entirely new aquaculture industry.

-o0o-

For the full story and photos please check out www.nzaquaculture.co.nz. Issue 11 its up and a free down load. Even for steam driven computers it wont take that long. All you need is Adobe reader.

Kingfish are a success story in our shared fisheries management. The non commercial sector hold the largest portion of the TAC and as such we have an ongoing responsibility to be good stewards of this species. Our tag and release program is giving continued science information and if this project can contribute to this information gathering it has to be good for our future kingfish fishery.

The web site will shortly be given the acknowledgement lists of pledges and payments. In the meantime please forward this update on your own lists and keep encouraging others to contribute.

Stay tuned for the announcement of a major sponsor shortly. This is fantastic news in the making. This is after all about "Fish for the future" and that all of us.

Thank you one and all...

Regards
Keith

Keith Ingram
President
NZ Recreational Fishing Council
4 Prince Regent Drive
Half Moon Bay
Auckland

Ph: 09 5334336
Fax:09 5334337
Mob:0274584747

NEXT >>>>>>>