\u201cI was cutting up tropical fish and doing disease diagnostic work on those.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended up on research trawlers, ministry research trawlers, trained as a research diver, and that took me all around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig Petherick working in Fiji in 2018. <\/p>\n
He said he gained an appreciation for all species, which helped when he moved to Napier, where he became a fisheries officer in late 1988. <\/p>\n
Petherick said the species targeted most by poachers over the years had changed, from crayfish to p\u0101ua.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur biggest bread and butter for poaching and illegal harvesting of fish in those days was rock lobster [crayfish]. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s still going on, but to a way lesser degree, and there\u2019s more of a push towards the p\u0101ua in our area.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said they spent a lot of time in Mahia doing missions, some under the cover of darkness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had quite a few poaching operations in Mahia, and it involved a lot of surveillance work, which meant sitting up on the hillsides with telescopes and binoculars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig Petherick said he always worked to protect fish. <\/p>\n
He said Operation Paul, Operation Barrel and Operation Pacman were all Mahia-based. <\/p>\n
Petherick even featured on the TV show Coast Watch \u201ca few times\u201d, with one of his most memorable being Operation Bubbles near the Chatham Islands with the Navy. <\/p>\n
P\u0101ua divers were unlawfully using underwater breathing apparatus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operation involved putting a helicopter out flying into the Chathams, making sure that our target vessels were in the water and we would steam in and intercept them, and hopefully catch them in the act.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he had never felt in danger doing his job, and it was important to take a respectful approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the business of protecting the fish, the police are in the business of managing people, law and order.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people disagree, feel free to disagree, but it doesn\u2019t mean you have to lash out and get abusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said education was the key to protecting marine species and their environment. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can educate people and empower them to make some good decisions, you are putting the ambulance at the top of the cliff.\u201d <\/p>\n
Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI was cutting up tropical fish and doing disease diagnostic work on those. \u201cI ended up on research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,1561,1558,6650,28167,8321,54249,2740,1976,692,102150,7239,111,43,139,69,10932,90,211847,211848,30308,6653,294,18678,1954,4576,1530],"class_list":["post-412052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-bay","tag-been","tag-craig","tag-enters","tag-fish","tag-fisheries","tag-former","tag-hawkes","tag-he","tag-lifes","tag-mission","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-on","tag-petherick","tag-pethericks","tag-protect","tag-reflects","tag-retirement","tag-shellfish","tag-simple","tag-work","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}