This week, Tiff Bock, Seafood New Zealand's GM Inshore Fisheries, writes about a pilot independent inshore trawl survey taking place off the East Coast of the North Island (Area 2)- New Zealand's first industry-driven initiative of its kind.
Not much in life is certain, but when it comes to fisheries management we try to be as certain as we can that our fisheries are in good shape.
Unfortunately, being certain about what's happening under the water is tricky - fish move, seas warm. Nature can be unpredictable at times.
Trawl surveys can be an important tool in assessing the abundance, distribution and size of fish, particularly as they provide a measure of abundance that is not related to commercial fishing activity. That's because commercial fishing activity is affected by things like availability of catch entitlement, weather and markets. Trawl surveys are not.
Trawl surveys may be the gold standard, but they also come with gold-plated pricing. Traditionally, they are done on specialist vessels by science organisations. It's not cheap. And with over 642 fish stocks to monitor it's near impossible to undertake surveys for them all.
There hasn't been a survey in Area 2 since 1999, when questions were raised about the survey that had previously been done in the area. This means that some stocks in Area 2 have also not been reviewed, despite fishers reporting seeing significant changes in abundance since then.
This got us thinking: perhaps we could help? Our inshore fishers have the boats, the gear and are always keen to learn more about the areas they're fishing in and support sustainable management. So we contracted an independent scientist, who designed a multi-vessel industry-led survey for us.
Funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and industry, the pilot survey recently got underway off the East Coast of the North Island. It involves three vessels - one from Gisborne Fisheries Limited and two of Moana New Zealand's contract fishers. NIWA is advising on and managing the operations for us alongside the independent scientist who designed the survey.
The fishers involved need to carry out around 20 tows each at specifically assigned locations over the duration of the survey. All the main species of fish (e.g. tarakihi, snapper and trevally) from those survey tows are being counted and measured, as well as being sampled to assess their ages. It's incredibly useful to see what cohorts of fish are out there.
While exciting, this is just a pilot, and there is a way to go to see if this works, including needing to undertake annual surveys for at least three years. But we know other fishers around the world have been successfully helping with scientific surveys for some time, especially in North America.
All going well, we see this as a way of improving the management of our fish stocks and doing so in a cost-effective manner that may allow us to undertake monitoring more frequently in the future. More monitoring equals more confidence that we are fishing sustainably.
This information will then be used by Fisheries New Zealand (FNZ) to inform their decision making. It gives us more certainty on biomass, so that we can be more agile in our fisheries management.
Let's tackle the elephant some will see in the room here. If we're helping with the survey work, is it truly independent? The short answer is yes. The instructions for the surveys are strict and designed by scientists and approved through FNZ's science review process, and the data will be analysed by independent science agencies.
The benefit to us is more robust, cost-effective information to manage our fisheries with more certainty. In some instances, outcomes from surveys might indicate a need to decrease catch, and we'd be okay with that, as it would be science saying it's what's needed.
We look forward to seeing how the rest of the survey goes and will report back in more detail in an upcoming issue of the Seafood New Zealand Magazine.
We are very grateful to the Ministry for Primary Industries and NIWA for supporting this initiative. And grateful to the fishers helping make this idea a reality - good luck with the rest of your tows!
