Fifty trawl fishers were interviewed to record their knowledge of biogenic habitat, with charts being marked by the fishers before being digitised and collated. When these areas were overlaid together, a total of 65 sites were identified around the country where multiple fishers (up to 9) described the same or similar habitats at overlapping locations, or in close proximity. Of these 47 were suggested as “Key Sites” for consideration for future empirical sampling.

Oral histories of 58 Māori and non-Māori individuals indicate the historical importance of daily fishing and gathering to some household economies in the Hauraki Gulf and along the Otago-Catlin coast, especially in the years before widespread refrigeration. Fish and shellfish were formerly very abundant and could be reliably caught with little effort, often from the shore with simple equipment. They tell a story of decreasing availability and size of key kai moana species.

Summarises the findings of research conducted to quantify patterns of genetic structure and rates of genetic connectivity amongst populations of five New Zealand coastal marine species and to identify the location of likely barriers to connectivity. At the species level this information may contribute to sustainable management of these species, and contribute to a growing body of literature on patterns of genetic population structure and connectivity in the New Zealand marine environment.

The potential impacts of the historical removal of top shark, finfish and mammalian reef predators on rocky reef ecosystems in the Hauraki Gulf are explored with qualitative modelling. The inclusion of small/medium size sharks had the most predictable impacts with highly certain negative impacts on the abundance of small/large lobsters, and highly certain increases of abundance of large predatory invertebrates, and macro-invertebrate predatory fish (e.g. snapper).

A large multi-disciplinary project was conducted to determine the effects of climate variation and human impact on the structure and functioning of New Zealand marine shelf ecosystems over the timescale of human occupation in New Zealand from about AD 1250 to the present day. This report summarises and synthesises the 18 contributing reports to describe the major changes to New Zealand marine ecosystems over the time period and discuss the overall implications of the results for marine conservation and management.

Summary of the capture of seabirds, marine mammals, and turtles in New Zealand commercial fisheries, 2002–03 to 2012–13: This report presents estimates of incidental captures of protected species in commercial trawl and longline fisheries in New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Estimates were derived for seabirds, marine mammals, and turtles, using statistical models based on fishing effort and observer data. The report updates existing information of protected species bycatch in New Zealand waters, including the 2012–13 fishing year.

Supplemental material for AEBR 168 “Abundance and distribution of WCSI Hector’s dolphin.”

Results of 2015 seasonal aerial surveys undertaken to update Hector’s dolphin abundance and distribution estimates along the west coast of the South Island and inform the Threat Management Plan review. Together with similar surveys and analyses of the east coast in 2013 and south coast in 2010, the estimated South Island population of Hector’s dolphin is now 14 849 (CV: 11% 95% CI 11 923-18 492), double the previous estimate from surveys conducted in the late 1990s – early 2000s.

This report provides an update of previous information on the incidental capture and mortality of marine mammals in commercial fisheries in New Zealand (most recently, Thompson et al. 2011, Thompson et al. 2013a).

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Threats to New Zealand Sea Lions.

This report describes an updated demographic assessment of the Snares Islands population of Southern Buller’s albatross (SBA). Model 3, which incorporated mark-recapture and census data, was considered to have provided the best assessment of the SBA population. This model estimated no increase in the size of the breeding population between 2002 and 2014. Based on the overall trend in the estimated population trajectory and key demographic from the base model, we believe that the fisheries risk to the viability of this population over the last 60 years appears to have been small.

Aquaculture of the green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus, Gmelin, 1791) has recently become New Zealand’s largest aquaculture export earner. However, the industry is reliant on wild caught larvae (“spat”) that wash ashore attached to foliose seaweeds and hydroids at Ninety Mile Beach within the quota management area of GLM 9.

This report provides estimates of annual levels of bycatch and discards in the New Zealand hoki, hake, and ling target trawl fishery for 1990–91 to 2012–13, using commercial catch-effort data to scale up rates calculated from the observed portion of the fishery. Hoki, hake, and ling accounted for about 91% of the total catch; the main bycatch species were silver warehou, javelinfish, rattails, and spiny dogfish. Annual bycatch ranged from about 12 020 t to 37 730 t; annual discards ranged from about 3699 t to about 16 633 t.

This supplement accompanies the updated risk assessment of the impact of fishing-related mortalities on seabirds breeding in the New Zealand region. It provides detailed information on the demographic parameters and on the at-sea distribution of the 70 seabird species included in the risk assessment. The distributional maps encompass the breeding and non-breeding distributions, and also include observer data of incidental seabird captures in commercial fisheries from 2006–07 to 2012–13.

This study presents an updated risk assessment of the impact of fishing-related mortalities on 70 of the seabird species that breed in the New Zealand region, based on data from 2006–07 to 2012–13. Eleven species were found to be at “high” or “very high risk” of population declines as a result of fisheries mortalities. Black petrel was the species most at risk, and other seabirds with a high risk ranking included species of albatross, petrel, and shearwater.

Black petrel are the New Zealand seabird most at risk of population decline as a result of fisheries bycatch. This study used fisheries observer, GPS tracking, and birdwatching data to estimate the overlap between the distribution of black petrel and commercial fisheries. Overlap was highest with inshore trawl, snapper and bluenose bottom-longline, and bigeye tuna surface-longline fisheries. This information will be used to improve the assessment of the risk of fisheries to black petrel.