Source: Radio New Zealand
Greenpeace Aotearoa says its activists “altered” the Rakaia salmon statue, turning it into a cartoon dead fish in protest of the dairy industry’s environmental destruction, but the council says it was vandalised. Supplied
For the first time in 40 years, no fish will be weighed in at Mid Canterbury’s Rakaia Fishing Competition today, due to woefully low numbers of salmon in the river.
The small farming township was once world famous for its abundant chinook salmon and other fish populations in the Rakaia River, even boasting a mighty 12-metre high salmon statue on state highway 1.
But numbers of sea-run salmon/hāmana, trout/tarauta and other aquatic life like smelt/paraki in the river have drastically declined in recent years.
This year, the 400 people entered in the iconic competition will instead vie for a lucky dip draw of $60,000 worth of prizes, including a motorbike – usually reserved for the heaviest fish.
Event organiser, Rakaia River Fishing Promotions’ president, Chris Agnew said it was a very difficult decision to run the event without fishing.
The mighty Rakaia River meets the sea Steve Terry
But he hoped it would encourage fish to come back and spawn in the river.
“It was a tough call to make because you know, like that’s what the thing is about, is trying to catch the biggest fish,” he said.
“It was the most sensible thing we could come up with that gave the competitors a chance to come and enjoy the competition or enjoy the camaraderie … But also to protect what fish are left coming back into the river, and to give them half a chance at spawning up the top.”
Agnew said low freshwater fish numbers were not isolated just to Rakaia.
“We’re not the only rivers, like every river in the South Island is suffering the same problem with no numbers.”
The Rakaia Fishing Competition started in the early 1980s and runs to Sunday. It bills itself as “the most successful fresh water fishing competition”. The contest started in 1983 as a way to promote local businesses but has evolved to promote ways to defend the river and highlight the fishery’s demise.
Earlier this month, Greenpeace activists vandalised Rakaia’s iconic salmon statue, turning it into a dead fish saying, “Fonterra killed my family” and blaming “dirty dairying”.
A spokesman said the protest was to highlight the damage to the Rakaia and pointed to the fishing competition not involving any fish.
Anglers’ harvest limited, more restrictions considered
Anglers have been restricted to catching just one salmon with current bag limits, and in January, Fish and Game consulted them on possible further restrictions on the fishery.
North Canterbury Fish and Game Council’s operations manager, Lyndon Slater said anglers were concerned, and the issue was not unique to Canterbury, where salmon numbers were historically low.
“The environmental pressures that we’re seeing are reflected right around right around the country. Particularly our East Coast rivers, we have seen the same decline across the board.”
Slater said environmental factors like warming oceans and reduced river flows from water takes were the largest drivers behind the decline.
He said that water takes affected river flows and the conditions of the habitats that supported spawning.
“We’ve seen, obviously with climate change, we’ve seen the impact of those consented takes decrease the quantity and quality of the water in the river.
“The impact of reduction in flows increases the temperature in the river and does result in increased mortality of fish.
“So while we recognise the need for irrigation generally, we would always like to see more water in rivers and the efficient use of water through that regulatory process.”
He said the Council wanted to see increased minimum flows in future.
“The issue isn’t necessarily with the [consenting] process itself, it’s around the amount that they allocated for its use and then how that water is used for the activity.”
Fish and Game’s latest sea-run salmon survey for the 2024/25 season said estimated harvest decreased on all four major sea-run salmon fisheries at the Rakaia, Rangitata, Waimakariri and Waitaki Rivers compared to the season prior.
“This is the third consecutive year we have observed a decline in the number of salmon harvested. On each of the four major salmon fishing rivers, the estimated harvest was less than half the previous season estimate,” it read.
North Canterbury Fish & Game Council chief executive Rasmus Gabrielsson undertaking DNA sampling of salmon in the upper Rakaia Supplied
Too much river water’s being taken – fishers
New Zealand Salmon Anglers’ Association president, Paul Hodgson said anglers saw the decline of the Rakaia River on a daily basis, describing the state of the fishery “like a death”.
“The only thing I can say for absolute dead certain is that the salmon in the rivers are almost gone. The trout in the lowland rivers are almost gone from where they used to be. The Stokell’s smelt are gone. All of these are indicators that something is not right.
“We’re living the funeral. We’ve been living it for the past five or ten years and nobody’s done anything about it to have any significant impact on it.”
Hogson said water extraction consents allowed enormous volumes of water to be taken from the Rakaia and other rivers, which affected river flow, the ecosystems and worsened sediment build-up.
“What’s truly amazing is people think that you can take 50 percent of the water out of the river and expect there to be no impact.”
He said the Canterbury Regional Council (Environment Canterbury) considered river health as proportional to river flow, but all adverse effects from water takes were not being properly tested.
“Well the health of the river doesn’t feature in the consent. And yet in every clause of a water abstraction consent, there’s a review course that goes along the lines of, ‘this consent may be reviewed if adverse effects are found.’
“But ECan doesn’t monitor for adverse effects, therefore, there is no evidence of decline. Therefore, there is no problem.”
He acknowledged that extraction consents legally allowed large water takes, and consented dairy farmers were authorised to do so, despite river degradation.
“The time has come where we need to start listening to what the science is telling us, and we need to take actions to manage the rivers adequately.”
Consenting conundrum
There were 63 water extraction consents between the Rakaia Gorge bridge and the sea, with minimum flow restrictions for when water could not be taken.
A Water Conservation Order here prevented more than 70 cumecs of water being taken from the river, with the highest daily abstraction at 42 cumecs in September last year.
Environment Canterbury’s general manager of regulatory implementation, Paul Hulse said the Rakaia River was a vital habitat for indigenous birds, aquatic species and a recreation hotspot.
He said it was a major source of hydroelectricity and it also supplied irrigation water to hundreds of farms, managed by consents.
“Each water take consent contains conditions to ensure that the volume is documented and that excess water is not taken, especially when river flow is low.”
Its water and land science manager, Elaine Moriarty said more work was needed to identify the causes of the declining fish populations in Canterbury’s rivers.
“However, there are interactions between climate change and land and water use pressures that may affect hāpua fish communities.”
She said a NIWA report showed changes in ocean conditions were likely a significant driver causing a decline in the survival rates of migratory fish, including Stokell’s smelt larvae.
Extraction not intended to be to be at river’s detriment – irrigators
Canterbury had the largest amount of agricultural land being irrigated across Aotearoa, at just under 480,000 hectares in 2022.
Home to more than a million dairy cows, the region now accounted for around 70 percent of the country’s total dairy farming irrigation.
Industry group Irrigation New Zealand represented water irrigation schemes and companies nationwide.
Chief executive, Karen Williams said water was extracted for a variety of uses in Mid Canterbury, and the schemes adhered to consent conditions.
“There are a lot of arable farms growing different seed and arable crops, there’s irrigated sheep and beef, and dairy,” she said.
“They are not wanting to extract water to the river’s detriment.”
Williams said E-Can was monitoring over-allocation closely, and building more water storage infrastructure would ease the pressure by harnessing rainwater while it was abundant.
“We need to capture and store that water because everyone needs that water, for potable water, anglers and recreation, all wanting to use it.”
Do irrigators’ fish screens work?
Paul Hodgson said there was evidence locally and internationally that the fish screens being used by irrigators to keep fish out of irrigation systems were not all in line with modern designs for effectiveness.
Lyndon Slater said Fish and Game was concerned about the condition of fish screens, especially as consent requirements had strengthened over time.
“The issue being some of these consents are many years old, up to 30-odd years old, and the conditions around them at the time of consenting was not as stringent as it is now,” he said.
“In an ideal world, we would have 100 percent efficiency across our fish screens.”
But Karen Williams said irrigators were working to make sure their fish screens were working well.
“A lot of schemes have invested a lot of time and resources to getting [fish screens] as effective as possible.”
Research carried out by NIWA in 2020 showed the effectiveness of fish screen devices varied considerably nationwide, usually based on design, with modern devices outperforming older ones.
Further research revealed that regional councils nationwide were reporting non-compliant screens that often failed to meet recommended specifications and were ineffective at excluding small fish including native species.
[Jellyman, P.G. (2020a) Effectiveness trials for different fish screen materials: reporting of Year 1 trial results, NIWA Client Report 2020035CH: 37.]
[Jellyman, P.G. (2020b) Status report summarising fish screening issues across New Zealand, NIWA Client Report 2020027CH: 34.]
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
LiveNews: https://livenews.co.nz/2026/02/27/fishers-living-the-funeral-of-low-salmon-fish-stocks-in-rakaia-river/