Getting a better grip on eels
Native freshwater eels support important commercial, recreational, and Māori customary fisheries throughout New Zealand. NIWA is the leading provider of scientific research and advice on eels to the Ministry of Fisheries.
Insight into hoki stocks
Improving treatments for fish diseases
Novel bioactive coatings show promise in anti-fouling trials
Keeping tabs on blue cod
Before deployment and after three months. (Photo:Graeme Moss, NIWA)
A three-year search by NIWA and Scion scientists has resulted in the discovery of a number of potentially useful natural extracts that protect submerged surfaces from fouling organisms. The research is a significant step in a global move away from very toxic, broad-spectrum metalbased biocides.
Research has involved an extensive screening programme using laboratory tests with fouling organisms such as invertebrates, diatoms, and macroalgal spores.
Native freshwater eels support important commercial, recreational, and Māori customary fisheries throughout New Zealand. NIWA is the leading provider of scientific research and advice on eels to the Ministry of Fisheries.
NIWA fish disease expert Dr Lincoln Tubbs performing a post-mortem on a juvenile hapuka (groper) at Bream Bay. (Photo: Larry Hammell, Atlantic Veterinary College, Canada)
NIWA is working on more efficient and environmentally-friendly ways of managing aquatic animal health in order to enhance aquaculture productivity and sustainability.
We’ve adopted some principals from mammalian pharmacology (the study of how drugs interact with the body over time) to better predict the outcome of a dosing regimen.
NIWA fisheries scientist Darren Stevens measuring hoki in Tangaroa’s wet lab. (Photo: Neil Bagley, NIWA)
Hoki support New Zealand’s biggest fishery. NIWA works with the Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) and the fishing industry to develop a better understanding of hoki stocks in order to sustain them into the future.
This year, we completed the tenth and sixteenth summer surveys respectively of the western and eastern hoki stocks. NIWA carries out annual assessments of these stocks for MFish, based on data from research surveys and commercial fisheries.
Craig Aston, skipper of the Lady Helen Rose, putting down a cod pot off D’Urville Island. (Photo: Ron Blackwell, NIWA)
NIWA fisheries scientists successfully tagged and released 995 blue cod as part of a Ministry of Fisheries survey in the Marlborough Sounds and Tasman and Golden Bays. This is the fifth survey in the region to assess changes in what appears to be a declining blue cod population.
Blue cod were caught at 748 pot and line stations throughout the area over three weeks in September.
