The country's biggest fishing company says it is possible historic bottom trawling in the Hauraki Gulf has contributed to snapper running out of food.
However, Sanford said a more likely explanation is increased runoff from land and expanding urbanisation.
Sanford has been fishing in New Zealand waters since 1865. But it rejects the assertion that bottom contact fishing has caused "chronic malnutrition" in snapper, leading to an increasing number of fish in the Hauraki Gulf having mushy white flesh.
"To suggest that is the cause of this I think is a long bow to draw," said Peter Longdill, Sanford's general manager of sustainability.
However, he accepted old, unregulated bottom trawling could be a contributing factor.
"Yes, there is potential that historical practices from fishing, any sort of bottom contact may have impacted there," Longdill said.
For example, green-lipped mussel beds, one of the shellfish snapper eat, used to cover 500 square kilometres of the inner Gulf. But they were fished to what's known as "total loss" between 1920 and 1960.
But Longdill thinks land use issues and sediment are more relevant when considering the problems with snapper.
"Urbanisation, massive land use changes, and all of the runoff from urban areas running into the water body," he said.
Sanford said most of the fish caught with white flaky flesh is from the inner Gulf.
It no longer trawls there and said the areas where its boats operate don't harm marine life.
"Like I said, you're trawling over featureless sand and mud," Longdill said, adding there's evidence of this online.
Newshub was referred to an edited three-minute clip put together by commercial industry group Seafood NZ. But the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is clear that bottom trawling does have an impact.
"We recognise [bottom trawling] fishing does have an impact on the environment. That's why we're looking to limit it to some really discreet and specific areas," said Emma Taylor, director of fisheries management at MPI.
It was back in June 2021 that a plan was announced to improve the health of the Hauraki Gulf. This included a plan to restrict bottom trawling to what the Government called special "corridors". But almost two years on, there's still no clarity as to where or how big these so-called corridors will be.
MPI said it's working on it.
"We haven't worked out the options for those yet. That science work is underway and we're looking to consult on that later this year," Taylor said.
It's slow progress, and possibly too slow to reverse the fortunes of New Zealand's most frequented marine park and our favourite fish.
