The Written Word
for January 23, 2000

Inconsideration of not being able to update Rafe's web page while I myself am away, Rafe has provided me with his Written Word Editorials through January 30th. They are all posted here.

Bob Brennert      

Last Wednesday I spoke about sports-fishing and my love of it. Today I’d like to discuss a topic about which there is a great deal of misunderstanding – fish hatcheries.

This is not, of course, a new technology. One of the great examples of hatchery fish working was back in the 1880s when Brown Trout were transplanted first to Australia then New Zealand. The ova were carefully packed and kept moist on what was then still a long voyage by sail and hatched half a world away. Similar plantings took place in the United States.

A few years later Rainbow Trout were taken, in the form of ova, from Sonoma Creek in Northern California to the streams of Lake Taupo in the center of the North Island of New Zealand where they – and Browns – now form one of the world’s great sport-fishing Meccas. The story of the Rainbow in Taupo is that of amateurs, not knowing what the hell they were doing, lucking out. When the fish first took hold in the Taupo Streams, the Tongariro being the most famous but by no means the only one let alone the best, they thrived as the Steelhead they were. They used the rivers for spawning and spent the rest of their life in the large lake as the Steelhead uses the ocean. For several years they thrived on the small crayfish, the Kouri, but in due course they started to get thinner and die out. They simply were too much for the Kouri so the settlers, not having the faintest idea what they were doing, transplanted some smelt from nearby Rotorua (since “roto” means lake in Maori it’s redundant to say Lake Rotorua, though most do). Happily the smelt took hold, the fish survived and the Kouri returned to their traditional numbers.

All this by way of saying that intervention by man has its place.

The great trout lakes of British Columbia, especially in the Kamloops region, are nearly all otherwise barren lakes stocked from the Pennask Lake hatchery.

Where the hatchery has justifiably got its bad name is in the raising of trout, often sexless called triploids, for “put and take” operations especially in crowded areas of the United States and Britain. These fish are raised to maturity in “stew ponds” and fed pellets, then released to be soon caught by eager fishermen. Often these fish are not only inferior in every imaginable way, but have hardly any tails. They fill a need but unfortunately they have raised a prejudice which is not entirely warranted.

I say not entirely because it’s still preferable to have wild fish.

I must say that my thinking on this subject has altered over the past few years. Having fished a number of reservoirs in Britain and caught the half tailed excuses for fish that are often there, I was very down on the hatchery method.

A man named Arthur Oglesby, an English sports fisherman of great repute and a noted angling author, altered my thinking. He recently pointed out in an article in Trout & Salmon, the first rate British sports-fishing magazine, that many of Britain’s greatest salmon rivers owe their present stock of fish to stockings past, stockings that took place 100 years ago in some cases. The stocking, done by carefully stripping and fertilizing wild stock replenished and kept alive many rivers. The trick is in using wild stock where possible but also, and even more importantly, releasing the fish as smolts not as adults. It may be and often is that the first few generations of fish will not be as good as wild fish but the important fact is that if at the same time you remove the causes of the wild stocks failing, namely restore the habitat, these stocked fish will themselves become wild.

As Oglesby points out, the alternative to stocked fish replenishing the river is no fish at all.

No, we don’t want the “put and take” situation where the hatchery dumps adult fish in the river and 25 yards downstream anglers start pulling them out. But a wise use of hatcheries done properly can restore and maintain a resource that otherwise would be extinct.

It’s an old story – a prejudice with some foundation in truth can become so entrenched that it’s no longer possible to point out that the exceptions may be of critical importance.

The Written Word
for January 26, 2000

I have often thought how I would like to live in New Zealand. And I’m entitled to if I wish because I am a citizen through my father’s New Zealand birth. It happens this way – by New Zealand law, children of New Zealanders themselves born in New Zealand are citizens from birth. All that is needed is your parent’s birth certificate, his or her marriage certificate and your own birth certificate plus a filled out form plus I think it’s about $50. I have done this and have also obtained a New Zealand passport – after all, as the lottery man says, you never know.

My Dad left New Zealand – he was born in Auckland – in 1913 when his parents along with his maternal grandmother came to Vancouver. My great grandfather – whom I didn’t know though I do remember his wife, my great grandmother – was a doctor and with the typical business acumen generally associated with that profession thought the streets of the still pretty new Vancouver were paved with gold. They weren’t. My paternal great grandfather was also born in New Zealand and his father, Gilbert Mair was an early pioneer in the Bay of Islands and in Whangerei.

This is, I believe, my 20^th trip to New Zealand starting 1n 1981. I fell in love with the place and feel drawn back more each year.

It’s an unusual country, New Zealand – it’s not as some think a hot country. With the exception of Northland, which is north of Auckland, both the summers and winters are mild. There is snow in some of the South Island cities but Auckland has never known it.

Geographically it’s like many countries rolled into one. Indeed their tourist brochure of a few years ago showed a map of New Zealand with several countries super-imposed to demonstrate the variations from place to place.

The North Island, with which I’m more familiar, has a very different sort of geography. In a way it reminds one of the Cotswolds except the top of the hills in the North Island are often rock outcroppings. Amazingly you will suddenly come across a huge volcano like Ruahepu, Tongariro and Egmont. And some of these volcanoes are very alive and well indeed. Ruehepu has had numerous eruptions, in fact two in the last three years.

I know that everywhere one goes one is struck by the friendliness of people but in New Zealand it is truly extraordinary. On my first trip I drove into a motel in Rotorua (where the famous geysers are) and as I parked my car one of the tires went flat. I went in to register before fixing the flat and came out to find the husband had already jacked the car up and was well on his way to replacing the tire.

A listener of mine was in New Zealand a few years ago and rented a camper or caravan as they call them. He and his wife stopped in a small town for directions. Before he knew it he was staying with a farm couple he’d never met before and had the loan of the family car to tour in, the host insisting that one could not sightsee comfortably in a caravan!

The scenery in the South Island is on the west coast here – it’s like you’d never left home. Deep fjords and high mountains – the Southern Alps – spring right out of the ocean. I’ve only been to the South Island three times but it’s not for lack of beauty – it’s just that Wendy and I have found a place we love where we have a beautiful river, for the most part entirely to ourselves.

Then why don’t I retire and move to my second country?

I can’t afford to retire, for one thing, but after all is said and done, it is still only my second home. Our families including 7 grandchildren all live in Canada and blood is indeed thicker than water.

Still, you might want to check with your folks – if either of them were born in New Zealand you might just want to have a peek at your birthright. You could do a lot worse!

The Written Word
for January 30, 2000

 New Zealand is a remarkable place with remarkable people. It is a country of less than 4 million souls and is very vulnerable from a trade point of view. Yet it has produced some remarkable people and remarkable accomplishments.

Back in 1991, after their best customer Britain had abandoned it for the Common Market, as it was then known, New Zealand was in horrible shape financially. It had no foreign reserves – not even enough to stock the Bureau de Change in Auckland Airport according to Richard Prebble, a junior treasury minister at the time. If he was joking, it was near enough to be true. Under the Labour government of the day it embarked upon an economic program for which the word dramatic is totally inadequate. Thousands were laid off, interest rates went over 20% and all farm supports were immediately withdrawn. And they made it. It took about 8 years but now New Zealand has a good balance of trade and – this is often overlooked by the “left” – they were in a position to survive the “Asian flu”. It is now a prosperous country.

But New Zealand is also known for the enormous individual contributions it has made. General Sir Bernard Freyberg was one of the outstanding commanders in the Second World War and Air Vice Marshall Sir Keith Park one of the Royal Air Force’s best airmen.

The names and events come quickly. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest. Peter Snell, the great mid distance runner. The New Zealand All-Blacks who are perennial world laureats and whose defeat last year by France is one of the upsets of all time. Bob Charles, the great golfer and one time British Open Champion. The winning of the Americas Cup. Perennial World Softball Chamions. World Class Cricket power. Writers like Katherine Mansfield and Ngaio Marsh. Kiri Te Kanawa. I’ve done this off the top of my head and have undoubtedly missed many more.

Since I started taking an annual vacation in New Zealand nearly 20 years ago I’ve puzzled at why it is that New Zealand does so well for a tiny country. Why hasn’t Canada produced its share of world class people? Why hasn’t British Columbia, as populous as New Zealand and many times bigger done the same?

I don’t know the answer but I’ll make a stab at it. New Zealanders, whether Pakeha (white) or Maori are intensely proud of their country. New Zealand has always had to be prepared to fend for itself from a position far removed from any neighbours. It has had to be a nation of performers to survive.

Kiwis are not aggressive, boisterous loud mouths like so many from their neighbour across the Tasman Sea – they are kind, a little reserved and quietly confident in themselves and their country. Unlike Canadians they are in no doubt as to who they are.

Perhaps there are other reasons but what is for certain is that per capita there is no other country with a record of performance in so many fields as New Zealand.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they happen to be damned good fishermen as well!