Mercury Bay Game Fishing Club member, and organiser of the Kubota Billfish Classic, Tom Maxwell , showed his frustration in a Facebook post yesterday that he titled ‘Cancel Culture Gone Mad’ after the Mercury Bay Area School decided against participating in a $2500 scholarship.

The prize money to be spent on University costs, or for the purchase of tools etc for an apprenticeship, will go to the successful student who designs the best Tee Shirt design for the fishing competition which has become the largest fishing event in the Southern Hemisphere.

Mercury Bay Area School Principal, John Wright, told CFM that the proposal for the scholarship should have received more consideration, but the decision was made to avoid students becoming embroiled in controversy.

One of the people who spoke out against the proposal is Whitianga local Thomas Everth. He responded to questions from CFM with personal comments and stressed that these were his own and not the schools. He told CFM, that people think “it’s a macho rite of passage to do this to 400 kg Marlin just because they are fish and call it a ‘sport’ and make lots of money on the suffering of these animals. So as a teacher of a class for sustainability education myself, I would find it difficult to reconcile advising a student to take money from such an endeavour “. He went on to say that he had discussions with several colleagues and found that they too think alike about this.

Tom Maxwell told CFM that the promotion is still going ahead but will now be run directly by the fishing club and said details will be available on their website in the next few days.