Fishing industry body Seafood New Zealand is delighted that fishers working in Aotearoa’s jack mackerel 7 fishery (JMA7) have managed to achieve a whole year of no accidental captures of protected species such as seabirds, dolphins and other marine mammals.

Jack mackerel is a significant species for New Zealand’s commercial fishing sector, worth over $66 million in export revenue, and area 7 is the largest of the jack mackerel fisheries we have.

CEO Lisa Futschek says this result is all about hard work and cooperation.

“It’s such good news and it didn’t come easy. The people operating in this fishery have developed multiple measures over many years to prevent bycatch. They have worked together to understand what works and what doesn’t, supported by Seafood New Zealand and other industry groups and by high rates of observer monitoring. It’s taken a lot of effort over many years to get to this point, but it was worth it.

“Protecting marine mammals and seabirds is so important to the people in this industry and everyone is working on this. The work in JMA7 shows a successful approach to protected species risk management and Seafood New Zealand is keen to spread the knowledge.”

The skippers, vessel managers and companies involved have worked to protect fur seals, seabirds and dolphins, but because the biggest overlap was with dolphins, extra work was focused in that area.

Key tools and processes for helping to reduce dolphin captures included:

  • Crews’ yearly briefings with Deepwater Environmental Liaison Officers and reviews of capture events
  • open dialogue with skippers and vessel managers about risk factors,
  • use of audio devices that deter dolphins
  • reducing the number of night time tows during the ‘higher risk period’
  • open communication between skippers, notifying the whole JMA fleet if/when a capture does occur
  • avoidance of new moon fishing at shallow depths

The three fishing companies currently involved are Sealord, Independent Fisheries Limited and Maruha.

Tim Law, the GM of Operations at Maruha says the result was achieved through massive efforts by fishing experts and others looking for practical solutions.

“Communication and cooperation between the three main companies involved in the fishery has been key to the success.

“The vessel managers and crew should also be commended for adopting new practices, equipment and abiding by the operating procedures, treating them like the Ten Commandments. This was disruptive at the beginning to the crew, but they fully adopted them, knowing it would prevent the interactions with the mammals and birds they share the environment with.”

While there is widespread delight with the result, Lisa Futschek acknowledges the industry can’t rest on its laurels.

“We know there will always be more work to do. Even in this fishery, with all the effort put in, we may not get a zero-result next year. But the point is we have a decade’s worth of figuring out what works. We must acknowledge that every fishery is different – different fishing vessels with vastly different operations, interacting with different species across different parts of New Zealand’s oceans – so there is not a one size fits all approach. But this demonstrates what can be achieved through proactive engagement, collaboration with knowledgeable skippers, supportive crews and industry led measures.”

For more information or to arrange interviews please contact:

Fiona MacMillan
GM Communications, Seafood New Zealand
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 021 513 522

 

Background Facts 

  • Jack mackerel is an important commercial fish species with the total commercial landed catch being approximately 55,000 tonnes, worth over $66 million in export revenue
  • The JMA 7 fishery is located off the west coast of the North and South Islands of New Zealand (see map below) and is the largest of the JMA fisheries in terms of total catch size at 32,000 tonnes.
  • Like with many fisheries nationally and globally, understanding and mitigating effects on the wider ecosystem has been a top priority in recent years. In JMA 7, the focus has been to minimise risk of dolphin captures.
  • In the early 2010s, common dolphin captures were identified as a key issue in the JMA 7 fishery (see graph below). Industry and government took immediate steps to improve monitoring and develop risk reduction measures.
  • From 2012, this fishery became one of the most highly monitored fisheries in NZ with an average of 78% of tows observed annually. This high observer coverage was supported by industry as an integral part of improving our monitoring and understanding of common dolphin captures in the fishery.
  • In the years that followed, Deepwater Group and members of the fishery worked closely together to build an understanding about dolphin interaction and developed tools and procedures to reduce risk of captures.
  • After more than a decade of proactive engagement, development of tools and a huge investment from industry in observer coverage, this fishery has successfully achieved zero protected species captures for the whole of the 2023/24 fishing year (1 October 2023 – 30 September 2024) - no seabirds, no fur seals, no dolphins.