Whangaroa Harbour open again for oyster harvest
Satellite data service saves money
Natural solution to fouling problem
Fish stocks in Antarctica
First swordfish assessment
The international treaty organisation charged with conserving marine life in Antarctica (CCAMLR) is considering whether to adopt a NIWA model as its standard method for fish stock assessment.
CCAMLR has 24 member states whose aim is to conserve marine life in the Southern Ocean, while allowing some harvesting to be carried out in a rational manner.
NIWA’s model, CASAL, is already being used for a dozen species in New Zealand, including hoki, orange roughy, and dredge oysters, and CCAMLR is considering using it to assess Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish in the Ross Sea, Heard Island,
The voluntary closure of Whangaroa Harbour, Northland, for oyster harvest has been lifted thanks to innovative thinking, smart technology, and months of concentrated sampling by NIWA, in association with a consortium of oyster farmers.
Over the past few years, oyster farmers in Whangaroa Harbour have been frustrated by finding oysters with elevated levels of bacteria while the harbour was open for harvest. The harvest criteria, based on rainfall and a floating salinity buoy, were not accurately predicting when run-off would pollute the harbour.
About 1500 fishing companies, fish processing companies, and recreational fishers use NIWA’s unique sea surface temperature (SST) service to help them target the most promising fishing spots and monitor the climate, weather, and ocean currents.
Many users report the service is ‘critical’ to their operations, including a substantial number of Australian vessels.
The cost of controlling marine fouling in global shipping and marine aquaculture is estimated to be US$2.5 billion per year. Traditional antifouling products are facing mounting environmental concerns and regulation due to their environmental persistence and toxicity, with some widely used chemicals already banned or set to be phased out.
There’s a global need for effective, but environmentally friendly, antifouling formulations.
The Ministry of Fisheries has recently contracted NIWA to undertake stock assessments of two highly migratory fish species, swordfish and albacore tuna, in the New Zealand region. This is the first time that swordfish have been assessed here.
Although not a target species, albacore is a major bycatch in the tuna longline fishery. Swordfish is not a permitted target species, but is a valuable bycatch.
We will use catch and effort data to derive a series of catch rate indices that may reflect relative changes in stock abundance.
