Tau kōura is an ancient method for harvesting and rebuilding kōura populations. Dr Ian Kusabs explains how it is now used as a method for monitoring kōura.
Questions for discussion:
- How do tau kōura help to rebuild kōura populations?
- Why do you think tau kōura are more effective for monitoring kōura than modern methods?
Transcript
Dr Ian Kusabs
There was absolutely no data on kōura in the central North Island lakes or pretty much any of the lakes because there was no suitable sampling method to capture kōura. The traditional western methods of trapping weren’t very good because they only catch big and aggressive males. They don’t catch many females, and they don’t catch any small ones. Diving is often used overseas as well, and that’s really expensive and you’ve got lots of health and safety issues.
I was talking to an uncle of mine and he said, “Hey, why don’t you try this traditional Te Arawa Tūwharetoa method called the tau kōura.” Basically that works by placing bundles of bracken fern, called whakaweku here, on the lake bed like a fishing longline, and the kōura go and colonise and then they shelter in them and they use them like little artificial reefs. They were used to capture large numbers of kōura in the lakes, but there’s evidence to suggest they were also used as a mini-hatchery. So these things go in the lake bed, and the female kōura go in there and they breed and then the little ones are released by their mothers and then they grow up. It was one of the few fishing methods that you could harvest from but it also rebuilt your population.
With the tau kōura, we get a good view of what the population is composed of. We found that this was a really good method because it caught a full size range of kōura as small as your thumbnail up to the very biggest ones, and we had an even sex ratio and we caught good numbers.
We’re very lucky that that kaumātua Willie Emery from Ngāti Pikiao shared that mātauranga with us.
Acknowledgements
Footage of divers, Sam Mcdermott, CC BY 3.0
Historical footage, women on waka and harvesting kōura with a whakaweku, 1937, The Footage Company Australia/British Movietone
Tau kōura diagram, based on the original by Dr Ian Kusabs, from Te Reo o Te Repo – The Voice of the Wetland. Crown copyright
Front page and diagram from historical article, Art. XLVIII.—Maori Food-supplies of Lake Rotorua, with Methods of obtaining them, and Usages and Customs appertaining thereto. Te Rangi Hiroa
Footage, kōura on lake bottom, whakaweku, men hauling in whakaweku and sorting sampled kōura, Dr Ian Kusabs
The Voice of the Wetlands
The handbook Te Reo o Te Repo – The Voice of the Wetland forms the basis of the collection of resources funded by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research and MBIE’s Unlocking Curious Minds initiative.
