This risk profile on ciguatoxins in seafood is an update of the 2007 risk profile. Although there is no evidence that ciguatoxic fish is currently being caught for consumption in New Zealand, climate change might change the geographic distribution of the ciguatoxin producing organism.
Dairy monitoring and surveillance programmes for substances of interest have been in operation in New Zealand for many years and a national programme for the monitoring of raw milk was introduced in the 1996/97 dairy season. Since that time the programme has become an official programme under the Dairy Industry (National Residue Monitoring Programme) Regulations 2002. It is administered by New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS).
We used a new dataset of benthic invertebrate occurrence developed from quantitative seabed photographic surveys to build improved predictive models of taxon and community distributions on Chatham Rise. These predictions are the first abundance-based models of benthic distributions in the region and are the best-informed representations of seabed distributions on Chatham Rise to date, providing a resource that will have applications in marine environmental management and ecosystem research.
A stock assessment was conducted for hoki in 2019. The current western biomass was estimated to be 56%B0 (median value) for the updated two-stock model, 34%B0 (western stock only model), and 29%B0 (two stock with a west focus). Current eastern biomass estimates were 66%B0 (two stock update) and 64%B0 (two stock with east focus).
Age compositions of orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) were estimated for the south-west Challenger Plateau (ORH 7A) and Westpac Bank from samples collected from a 2018 trawl and acoustic survey. The age composition was produced for use in assessments of this stock.
This report presents the assessment of the WCSI hake fishery in 2018–19. It used catches and catch age composition data from the commercial trawl fishery, research trawl survey biomass index and age composition data, and biological parameters available in the scientific literature. The spawning stock biomass was estimated to have declined since 1990, reaching 17% of B0 in 2019. Three different parameterisations highlighted the sensitivities of this result to alternative assumptions.
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New Zealand Gamefish Tagging Programme release and recapture data is updated to include the 5501 fish tagged and 112 fish recaptured during the fishing years 2016–17 to 2018–19. The number of gamefish landed by New Zealand Sport Fishing Council clubs is recorded. The combination of data from these sources provides a reasonably complete record of recreational catch of billfish, mako and blue sharks. It is indicative of recreational catch for tuna and other large shark species.
A bottom trawl survey of the west coast South Island in 20–400 m depth and Tasman and Golden Bays in 10–70 m depth was carried out using R.V. Kaharoa (KAH1902) in March–April 2019. The survey was optimised to estimate abundance of red gurnard, red cod, giant stargazer, spiny dogfish, tarakihi, and snapper. The core (20–400 m) survey was the fourteenth in the time series since 1992. Two strata in 10–20 m depth in Tasman and Golden Bays were surveyed for the second time as part of a two survey pilot aimed at determining the feasibility of estimating snapper abundance.