LOBSTER TRAGEDIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 26, 28 December 1932, Page 7

LOBSTER TRAGEDIES

STORY OF MANY FAILURES. INTRODUCING THE EUROPEAN VARIETY. (By Telegraph—Special to Standard). WELLINGTON, Dec. 28. The story of many unsuccessful attempts to extend the range of New Zealanders’ diet by introducing the European lobster, as told by the chairman of the board controlling the Marine Fisheries Investigation Station, suggests that we must continue to eat the excellent crayfish as the nearest substitute.

The only relics of efforts to introduce the lobster are 14 males and 11 females retained in the station tanks at Portbello, near Dunedin. They are abount 14 years old. Over a hundred larvae from them were kept last year until they were a month old, and 79 fairly active specimens subsequently liberated on the coast in a fairly secluded spot where there were plenty of crevices which would enable them to obtain shelter from the larger enemies. Six weeks after their liberation a close examination of the spot disclosed two- young lobsters, which were found under a rock and made frantic efforts to find cover.

A brief summary of the history of the efforts to introduce the lobster into New Zealand waters shows that it commenced with an effort in .1864 by Mr A. M. Johnson, of Opawa, Cnristchurcli, who was noted for his work in endeavouring, under the most adverse conditions, to introduce many sorts of fish into the Dominion. In shipping them from London he put all his twenty-six lobsters into one tank, “with the result,” as the report continues, “that they fought like Kilkenny cats till only one was left alive, and this was sold to a passenger, who no doubt had it for his dinner.”

In 1885 a dozen lobsters were shipped in London by Mr C. S. Farr for the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, but all died in the tropics. In 1892 Mr Clifford, of Dunedin, shipped a lot for the Otago Acclimatisation Society, and these met the same fate. The first lobsters landed alive in the Dominion came as the result of three attempts by Mr Purves, chief engineer of the lonic. Nine arrived and were placed on the mole at the entrance to Otago Harbour, “a most unsuitable locality, and were never heard of again.” In 1906 the board of the Portobello fish hatchery renewed the attempt, but out of 25 lobsters which started the voyage, only two survived. Three more shipments came at intervals till 1909, when 17 males and 14 females were landed alive. Then in 1913 the curator of the station, who had been to England to bring out herring ova, landed 41 lobsters. The surviving lobsters of the old stock were liberated at Harrington Point, just inside Otago Heads. Presumably they have gone the way of their predecessors. “It is difficult to say why this experiment, carried on for so many years, should have failed,” comments the chairman of the board, “but the sea is very vast, and even if many of the larvae survived on the coast and grew to maturity, the chances of breeding are very small. It is possible, but not very probable,” concluded this record of failure, “that mature lobsters may yet be met with.”