Neubauer, P.; Kim, K.; Hill-Moana, T.; Langley, A. (2025). Considering ecosystem aspects when setting management targets for New Zealand’s fisheries: Insights from simulations and application to snapper and gurnard in FMA 7. New Zealand Fisheries Assessment Report 2025/40. 62 p.

We studied the implications of managing fish stocks in New Zealand by considering the wider ecosystem, instead of only focusing on individual fish species. We examined snapper and gurnard fisheries in the Tasman Bay Golden Bay areas to see what happens when fishing targets are set higher than traditional levels. Using computer simulations, we tested different management approaches that would leave more fish in the ocean than current practices typically require.

 

We found that keeping fish populations at higher levels led to more and bigger fish. However, this approach also meant fishers could catch 20 to 45% fewer fish, potentially reducing economic returns. Whether higher fish population targets made economic sense depended strongly on fishing costs—expensive operations benefited because they needed less effort to catch quotas, whereas cheaper operations lost money due to smaller catches.

 

We showed that snapper and gurnard fisheries are closely connected, with over half of snapper catches happening when boats were declaring gurnard target fishing. Managing one species differently affects the other, showing that it is important to con

 This project estimated the size and age of trevally caught in the commercial bottom trawl and modular harvest system bottom trawl fishery along the west coast of New Zealand (TRE 7 quota management area) during the 2022–23 and 2023–24 fishing years.

 The red rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) supports the most valuable inshore commercial fishery in New Zealand. This fishery has been managed with catch quotas in nine Quota Management Areas (QMAs), which are usually treated as independent populations or stocks.

 This document reports on whether an online panel could be used to recruit fishers to a national harvest survey by marine recreational fishers. These national surveys have been carried out in 2011–12, 2017–18, and 2022–23 using screening for a fisher within a household. The households are sampled using a standard probability-based sampling scheme using Census meshblocks as the first stage of sampling and dwellings within the meshblock as the second stage of sampling. Recruitment like this contributes about half the cost of running a harvest survey. In contrast, market research companies recruit people to online panels typically from reward programmes. This study used a sample of 1000 people from the Omnijet online panel survey run by Verian. Respondents who identified as fishers were asked questions about their fishing behaviour. The demographic characteristics of these fishers and their behaviour was compared to those of the most recent national harvest survey. The online panel sample was materially different from the national harvest survey sample. The conclusions of this study are that in order to be comparable to the previous surveys, an online panel should therefore not be used for recruitment.

 The snapper fishery in Fisheries Management Area 2 (SNA 2) occurs on the east coast of the North Island, primarily from Hawke Bay to East Cape. Snapper in this area is mainly taken as bycatch in trawling that targets tarakihi or gurnard.

Roberts, J. (2025). Harbour use by Māui/Hector’s dolphin and commercial net fisheries. New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 363. 56 p.

This document provides a summary of existing information of the use of West Coast North Island (WCNI) harbours by Māui/Hector’s dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori) and by commercial net fisheries.

Based on this review, Māui/Hector’s dolphins were much more frequently encountered in the coastal domain of the WCNI. By comparison, sightings and acoustic detections in harbour areas were much more infrequent and almost entirely located inside fishing prohibition areas in harbour mouths.

Commercial net fishing effort was described using recent data collected using electronic monitoring, which includes the locations of all reported fishing events. The two main net fishing methods used in WCNI harbours are set-nets and ring-nets, which differ in terms of the gear used and the nature of fishing operations. The overlap of harbour-based set-net effort with the dolphins is likely to be very low. By comparison, the overlap with ring-net fishing with the dolphins is likely to be a little higher in some harbour mouths, although ring-net fishers must attend their gear throughout short deployments, so this method is considered less likely to capture Māui/Hector’s dolphins. 

However, several opportunistic sightings of Hector’s and Māui dolphins were

Finucci, B.; Bennion, M.; Chin, C.; Duffy, C.A.J.; Morrison, M.; Struthers, C. (2025). Identification and mapping of habitats of significance for sharks. New Zealand Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report No. 361. 248 p.

The aim of this project was to review existing literature and analyse data to identify areas that may be further identified as a habitat of particular significance (HoPS) for chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, and chimaeras). This project proposed 30 HoPS for 20 species of interest: six of the 20 species had at least one potential HoPS for spawning purposes identified and 10 species had at least one suspected potential HoPS identified. There were four species (blue shark, mako, porbeagle, basking shark) where potential HoPS could not be identified. No proposed HoPS is completely closed to fishing, and 22 proposed HoPS are completely open to fishing. All species evaluated here need further information to reduce knowledge gaps. Focal species and areas for future research, and alternative opportunities to collect data are discussed.

 This report describes research conducted in 2022, 2023, and 2024 to determine the age of southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii; STN) caught in New Zealand’s surface longline (SLL) fishery. Ages were assessed using counts of opaque and translucent zones in STN otoliths (‘ear bones’). Otoliths used this this study were collected from fish heads supplied by Licensed Fish Receivers (LFRs), collected by observers onboard SLL vessels, or from sampling of the recreational fishery in a related Fisheries New Zealand project. A total of 150, 156, and 163 STN were aged in 2022, 2023, 2024, respectively. Assigned ages ranged from 2–26 years old, with most aged fish around 4–12 years old. An age-length key was constructed applied to the lengths of STN provided by LFRs to estimate the age structure of the SLL catch in each year. The information generated by this study will be used for assessments and fisheries management advice.

 People in New Zealand enjoy the collection of seafood as a recreational and customary activity along the country’s coastline. Two important seafood species in coastal areas are cockles and pipi, which occur in intertidal sediments of beaches, estuaries, and large tidal inlets and harbours. In northern New Zealand, cockles and pipi have been regularly monitored for several decades across different sites in Northland, Auckland, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty. This monitoring aims to ensure the persistence of their populations, providing information of the abundance, density, and population size structure of cockles and pipi. Presented here are the survey findings from the summer of 2024–25, with population information for Pataua Estuary (Northland), Cockle Bay, Kawakawa Bay (West), Mill Bay, Ōkahu and Okoromai bays (Auckland and its wider region), Ōhiwa Harbour, Otūmoetai (Tauranga Harbour), and Waiotahe Estuary (Bay of Plenty), and Whangapoua and Whitianga harbours (Waikato). Both cockle and pipi populations across these northern sites were generally large, consisting of millions of individuals. Their densities varied dependent on the site, but were a minimum of over 140 individuals per square metre for cockles, and over 180 individuals per square metre for pipi, except at one site (Pataua Estuary). At several sites, small-sized individuals made up most of the population, highlighting strong recruitment events that preceded the data collection.

 Presented in this report are standardised catch per unit effort (CPUE) analyses and fishery characterisation for the South Island commercial freshwater shortfin and longfin eel fisheries for the years 1991 to 2023. The fisheries within nine catchments or management areas that are commercially fished are described along with trends in abundance of both eel species, where sufficient data exist, over this 33 years period.

 An acoustic biomass survey of spawning orange roughy was undertaken on aggregations at Morgue and Graveyard hills in ORH 3B North-West Chatham Rise and at Rekohu, Spawn Plume and Mt Muck in ORH 3B East & South Chatham Rise, during June and July 2022 aboard FV San Waitaki.

Acoustic data were recorded using the vessel’s hull-mounted Simrad 38 kHz echosounder system and a dual-frequency (38 kHz & 120 kHz) Acoustic Optic System (AOS) deployed on the headrope of a trawl net.

In NWCR, spawning biomass at Morgue, a protected area, showed an increase over survey estimates in 2013, 2016 and 2021, while spawning biomass at Graveyard was considerably reduced compared to the previous survey estimate in 2013. In ESCR, spawning biomass at Rekohu in 2022 was lower than in 2013 and 2016, while at Spawn Plume the biomass was similar to that found in 2013 and 2016. At Mt Muck the biomass in 2022 was higher than the estimates in 2013 and 2016.

 Tangata Whenua of Tutukaka, Ngunguru and Hora Hora seek to protect and enhance ecosystem health in their rohe. In February 2024, the Rehuotane Ki Tai 186a temporary closure was established within three nautical miles of the coast. The harvest for rock lobster, cockle, crab, garfish, mussel, octopus, pāua, pipi, rock oyster, sea cucumber, sea horse, sea snail, starfish and tuatua was prohibited and no fishing with nets was allowed in Tutukaka Harbour or the Ngunguru and Hora Hora estuaries.

 The Chatham Islands to the East of the South Island of New Zealand are in an area that has been identified as experiencing frequent marine heatwaves. We investigated the effect of changing sea surface temperatures on adult and sub-adult pāua (Haliotis iris) collected from Ascots Beach and Owenga Harbour in the Chatham Islands, between 2020 and 2022. Pāua at the two sites reacted differently to temperature changes based on microbial diversity and metabolic profile findings. Site specific differences were detected in histological assessments with pāua from Ascots Beach showing reproductive abnormalities and pāua from Owenga Harbour showing an increased presence of kidney stones. 

This report describes application of a novel risk assessment approach to trawl bycatch (non-target) shark species. The assessment estimated the exploitation rate inflicted on each of twelve species by fishing in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone. Although trawl catches predominated, all relevant fishing methods were included so that the total fisheries impact could be gauged. The exploitation rate is a measure of the proportion of the selected population biomass that is killed as a result of fishing, and includes those individuals that die even when returned to the ocean. The exploitation was compared to a theoretical productivity measure to estimate whether it was high enough to inflict long-term damage on the population. Elephantfish (Callorhinchus milii) and carpet shark (Cephaloscyllium isabellum) were identified as being at higher risk from fishing.

 This report summarises pāua shell length information collected by sampling the commercial catch from areas PAU 2, PAU 3A, PAU 3B, PAU 4, PAU 5A, PAU 5B, PAU 5D and PAU 7 during the 2023–24 fishing year.

 

• We investigated orange roughy stock assessments for Chatham Rise, part of ORH 3B.
• Stock assessments for this region have encountered problems, with models much more optimistic about stock status than suggested by fisheries statistics and some research surveys.
• We describe skipper information on orange roughy behaviour and target fishing, the biology of orange roughy with respect to their sensory abilities, and observations of orange roughy responding to objects in the water column and to fishing disturbance.
• Investigations of fisheries catch per unit effort found evidence of disturbance, where recent fishing activity reduced catch rates. The disturbance effect was considered useful but was not a “game changer”.
• Seasonal trends in sea temperature, primary productivity, weather, and sea state, could be simply described using a “month” variable.  Spatial and regime shift models improved the fits to data.
• Observed changes in orange roughy age frequency distributions have been poorly fitted in recent stock assessment models, but were better fitted here by models assuming reproduction had dropped to a very low level once the fishery started. One hypothesis that might explain this result is that fishing disturbance reduced reproducti

The red rock lobster supports the most valuable inshore commercial fishery in New Zealand. This fishery has been managed with catch quotas in nine Quota Management Areas (QMAs), which are usually treated as independent populations or stocks.

The catch quotas are calculated for some QMAs using management procedures (MPs). Given an input, such as catch per unit effort (CPUE), MPs return an output such as Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC).

 

This document describes the operation of the current MPs used to manage New Zealand red rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) in CRA 7 and CRA 8 for the 2025–26 fishing year. The operation of the MPs for the upcoming 2025–26 fishing year indicated that there should be no change in TACC for CRA 8, but indicated an increase in TACC for CRA 7.

This report summarises pāua shell length information collected by sampling the commercial catch from areas PAU 2, PAU 3A, PAU 3B, PAU 4, PAU 5A, PAU 5B, PAU 5D and PAU 7 during the 2022–23 fishing year.

The length frequency distributions were typical of commercial pāua fisheries, and consistent with previous years.

 Methods to reduce and monitor seabird bycatch in tuna longline fisheries are subject to ongoing investigation globally. Proven methods to reduce seabird bycatch are available, while these may not be implemented at sea. This project progressed the development of a working benchtop prototype device designed to monitor deployment of a tori line (a line with streamers attached that is deployed astern the fishing vessel, and reduces the risk of seabird bycatch by deterring birds from attending longline gear during setting), night setting, and the presence of weights on longline branchlines. The benchtop prototype device was transformed into a unit designed for at-sea deployment and subjected to proof-of-concept at-sea testing. The seagoing prototype design incorporated two small IP cameras, a GPS antenna, a rotation sensor, and an externally produced tracking buoy intended to record the location of the terminal end of the tori line. Forty-five hours of camera imagery and associated data were collected from five longline sets during at-sea testing in New Zealand. Tori line deployment could be verified and longline setting time was recorded (relevant to monitoring night-setting). The tracking buoy located at the end of the tori line failed to record GPS information during testing. Therefore, the location of the terminal end of the tori line astern the vessel could not be determined. The project also encountered many logistical difficulties, in part due to taking place at the h

 This report provides estimates of non-target catch and discards in the southern blue whiting fishery between 2006–07 and 2022–23 (comprising 12 195 trawls from 30 vessels).

 This paper summarises commercial catch and effort statistics for red rock lobsters, which are also known in New Zealand as “crayfish” or “kōura”. The summaries are by the fishing year as set out in the Fisheries Act, with the rock lobster legal fishing year defined as the period 1 April–31 March. The summaries presented in this document cover the period 1 April 1979 to 31 March 2024.

 This study estimated the proportion of Patagonian toothfish caught within the New Zealand EEZ that would survive if they were released alive.