Seeing cattle in pristine waterways?

[marlsounds]

I fished a stunning South Island backcountry stream earlier this week. The middle section carries a large population of cattle, and they were actively drinking from and crossing the stream in a number of places. The soft swampy ground draining into the stream is heavily pugged and generally cut up. Overall, it's clear the cattle are creating havoc and damaging a valuable river. What's the best approach to get action?

[Steve]

Did you get some pictures? Post them up. And may be able to get a bit of publicity on this for you, and also you should let your regional council know, the new freshwater standards require councils to act I understand, so should be able to get some action on it. And the RMA says councils should give particular regard to the protection of trout habitats - who would have guessed!

[marlsounds]

Thanks, Steve. I have video. I can get some still off it to post here. The remote stream is popularly fished by Canterbury anglers so affects many of us across the top half of the South Island. I'll contact the appropriate regional council then and see what action they take. Cheers.

[Steve]

If you are happy to share the location and some footage, I'm assuming then this is in Ecans territory, we need to keep the pressure on them to lift there game, you can email me, can probably get this some publicity

[marlsounds]

Steve - posting some video footage now. It's on the Molesworth Station, starts with A. I'm conscious of not posting river names/details too widely as Google has already done immeasurable damage to our South Island backcountry fisheries. Cattle damage is rampant and I've spoken with other anglers up there (from Canterbury) since October who have expressed frustration at the damage, cattle traffic across the stream and lack of fencing.

I'm sure there are many instances of anglers' frustration seeing cattle in this river. The location is actually in the regional authority of the Marlborough District Council. They have tried to push me off to DoC who administer the area, but I've pushed back as I understand it's MDC who can issue abatement notices. Now waiting for them to contact me again with the latest update.

[marlsounds]

Can't upload video, but here are a couple of screengrabs for reference.

[marlsounds]

Just an update. DoC have been informed and apparently they acknowledged getting many complaints and they can provide me with their farm management plan and the water testing they do if I call them directly . Accordingly to the MDC, the farm management (Landcorp) conduct water testing regularly and generally are compliant with the NES!

But, how would the Council actually know?!

[marlsounds]

This link contains some useful information: https://www.mfe.govt.nz/fresh-water/fre ... egulations