Waiariki Park Region

Cutting back on catfish

Pesky catfish have been wreaking havoc on the native fish population in the Rotorua lakes region for decades. There are an estimated 180,000 catfish in Lake Rotoiti alone. A group of community volunteers, appropriately named the Catfish Killas, have been working to combat this by removing catfish from the lakes and suppressing the numbers around the central Waiariki region. Co-ordinated by Te Arawa Lakes Trust and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, this keen group have been tirelessly netting catfish, which has proven to hold the population to a level but not able to decrease the population. The Catfish Killas are not giving up in their dream of restoring taonga species to the lakes and decreasing water pollution in the future however and are working hard on new methods to get this environmental issue under control once and for all!