Science Centres: Fisheries

Foraging seabirds. (Photo: Peter Marriott, NIWA)

NIWA is engaged in several Ministry of Fisheries-funded projects to investigate the impacts of fisheries on New Zealand’s diverse seabird fauna. The results will help guide initiatives by industry and government agencies to minimise seabird bycatch in fisheries.

The Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) recently awarded NIWA a five-year contract to investigate seabird population dynamics in relation to fishing activities. The project will include studies of population size and trends of various albatross and petrel species on the Chatham, Antipodes, Bounty, and Snares Islands. In addition, we will track tagged birds through remote sensing to gather data on their at-sea foraging distribution and behaviour.

Complementing this project, NIWA will develop a seabird population dynamics model for MFish. This will incorporate mark-recapture data and will borrow elements from our successful CASAL fish population model.

In other MFish work, we provide annual estimates of seabird bycatch in New Zealand commercial trawl and longline fisheries. Seabirds, particularly albatrosses and petrels, are caught when they collide with trawl warps, get caught in the net, or are hooked on a longline. Although individuals representing at least 13 albatross taxa and more than 20 petrel taxa have been caught during fishing operations in New Zealand waters over the last 15 years, the annual incidental catch in recent years has been dominated by 5 taxa: white-capped albatross, sooty shearwater, white-chinned petrel, Buller’s albatross, and Salvin’s albatross. In an extension of this work, we are developing a risk assessment methodology to determine where and when the different seabird taxa are at risk from capture.

Overall these projects aim to assess whether incidental bycatch of seabirds in fishing activities influences seabird population trends and to determine where and when foraging seabirds may overlap with fishing activities.