Southland Fish and Game chairman Graeme Watson at a meeting in Invercargill on Wednesday night.

A Southland Fish & Game councillor who made comments about "chick scientists" will be asked to resign.

At an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday night, the Southland Fish & Game Council passed a unanimous vote of no confidence and asked for Ken Cochrane's resignation by 4pm on Friday.

Opening the meeting, chair Graeme Watson told councillors that Cochrane had issued an apology and that he would not be at the meeting.

Kavinda Herath/Stuff Southland Fish & Game councillor Ken Cochrane has been given until Friday afternoon to resign.

The amount of emails and social media council had received about Cochrane's comments was unprecedented, Watson said.

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"We as a council cannot underestimate the seriousness of this issue to Southland Fish & Game," Watson said.

"The emails, the texts, the phone calls, the newspaper articles and social media feedback has been unprecedented in my time on the council."

"So, I won't say anymore," Watson said, before the meeting moved into public excluded.

After the meeting, Watson said Cochrane's "patronising and sexist remarks" did not represent Fish & Game.

"And while I'm extremely disappointed this has occurred, I'm pleased we are able to respond decisively."

"Scientists who are merely doing their jobs should not have to put up with such unacceptable comments and quite frankly, nor should anyone else," Watson said.

He received about 50 emails and text messages on Tuesday from scientists, lecturers and fishing licence holders.

From the roughly 50 messages, Watson said two were in support of Cochrane's comments.

Watson said he had not had the time to respond to those two, and council would respond to all correspondence it had received.

The controversy stemmed from a Southland Recreational Whitebaiters Association meeting in Invercargill on Sunday, discussing the association's submission regarding the Improving Whitebait Management discussion document.

At the meeting, Cochrane, speaking about the document and his time as part of a whitebait working party, said: "I sat there one day and I thought: 'What I'm listening to is a whole bunch of chick scientists.'

"And if you really looked at the view that they were pitching, [it] was everybody in New Zealand should not shave their armpits, they should wear dreadlocks, and when they go whitebaiting they should do it in jandals only.

"And after they catch one patty for tea they should sit down, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. That was the feeling I got."

The comment was met with laughter from some sections of the close to 200 people at the meeting.

Earlier this week, Cochrane told Stuff he did not perceive the comments as hurtful. He apologised if he had "caused anybody inconvenience or harm" and said "they were not derogatory comments made at women in any shape or form."

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said the Department of Conservation's freshwater scientists were world leaders in their fields who deserved to have their knowledge and expertise respected.

"Scientists doing their job and consulting stakeholders on whitebait management should not have to put up with being described as "chick scientists" and the patronising, sexist comments in this article, " she said in a social media post linking to the Stuff article.

"I welcome robust debate about the issues at hand but derogatory and discriminatory comments are never acceptable."