There are growing calls to regulate our whitebait fishery as numbers continue to fall.
Four out of the six native species here are in decline or at risk of extinction, and modelling suggests they could be extinct by 2050 if nothing is done to protect them.
Roger Bell is one of may whitebaiters around the country witnessing a population in decline.
"When I first started coming here we used to get quite a bit and as the years have gone on, there seems to be less running up the river," he said.
Bell's been whitebaiting on the Clutha River for well over a decade and has never had a season as bad as this one.
"This year was very poor; I got hardly anything."
The Department of Conservation has introduced a raft of regulations to help protect the at-risk species.
They were first introduced last year and include restrictions on gear and fishing areas, as well as introducing areas where whitebait would be protected in Fiordland and Abel Tasman areas.
This year, the season was shortened by six weeks.
"That is to take the pressure off these juvenile native freshwater fish and to see what difference that makes," DOC's director aquatic, Kirstie Knowles, said.
Forest and Bird says it was good to see a shorter season introduced, but it only addresses part of the problem.
"It sort of doesn't make up for the fact that we're not managing this fishery like other fisheries are managed," Forest and Bird's freshwater advocate, Tom Kay, said.
There have been no restrictions on whitebaiting for decades. There's no catch limit, no licensing system and no requirement to report catch numbers.
"It's pretty crazy," Kay said.
"What really gets me is we're talking about species with similar threat status to some of the native birds that we love and that we would never think about catching those."
He said while there are "really strong protections" around licencing and fishing requirements for introduced species like trout and salmon, there is "nothing like that for whitebait".
"It doesn't make sense."
There are also calls for more research.
Otago University zoology professor Gerry Closs said the only data on the whitebait fishery is anecdotal and "nothing substantive".
"We haven't got good data, not in terms of how many fish return each year or even what the catches are from year to year," he said.
Closs is calling for more data on how many whitebait are caught each season and "possibly some catch limits on the commercial fishery".
"I still feel nervous about the commercial fishery simply because it creates an incentive for unlimited catch."
DOC has created a survey to gather information from whitebaiters themselves, including where whitebait are being found and what gear is being used.
"All of that really rich information will help us understand what's going on and manage the fishery better for everybody," Knowles said.
"The best way to get that data is from the people that know these rivers and streams, that have been fishing them for a long time – they’ve got that knowledge."
Forest and Bird says it could be useful to provide information about the fishery, but Closs is sceptical.
"Any data's better than no data, but straight away you would one, question the quality of the data and it depends how engaged the whitebaiting community is," Closs said.
In the meantime Forest and Bird is calling for the urgent implementation of a licencing system, a catch limit and the recording of catch data.
"We've been pushing for a long time to just have those simple things that any well-managed fishery should have," said Kay.
The DOC survey, which closes on November 18, can be found here.
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