Twenty at-risk species killed on a single fishing trip
A single boat killed 20 protected species in one fishing trip – including one of the world’s rarest seabirds.
The commercial vessel was fishing for southern bluefin tuna in May 2022. The crew had used mandatory measures designed to reduce seabird captures – but they didn’t meet legal requirements.
Commercial fishers have to file daily reports about what they have caught, which are then made public. But the crew’s account differed from that filed by a government observer who was on board for the eight-day voyage.
The fishing company – which Fisheries NZ has not identified – escaped prosecution.
Eight white-chinned petrels, three grey petrels, three Buller’s and Pacific albatross, one Westland petrel, and two white-capped albatross became tangled up in the vessel’s longlines and drowned. All are considered vulnerable, threatened, at risk or from a declining population.
A southern royal albatross also died. The species is classified as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. There are only about 27,000 adults. The offshore vessel also snared two fur seals and a further four seabirds, all were released alive.
The deaths were classified as a ‘‘significant capture event’’ by
Fisheries NZ, and then-Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker was alerted. A government observer was onboard while the crew fished off the east coast of the South Island, and also recorded the captures.
Vessels are required to deploy two out of three seabird mitigation measures. Regional fisheries compliance manager Howard Reid said the crew used tori lines (a bird-scaring device towed behind the vessel) and line weighting (so that baited hooks
sink quickly beyond the diving range of seabirds).
But the observer raised concerns about the equipment. The tori line was 50m across and above the water, not the legally required 75m, and its ‘‘aerial extent’’ (how much is visible outside the water) was not enough. Some hook lines were also missing weights.
‘‘In this instance, an observer was on-board and made recommendations to improve the vessel’s by-catch mitigation,’’
Reid said. ‘‘The operators took these corrective measures, and we continue to work with them.’’
The discrepancy between the crew data and that of the observer was only registered when Live Ocean, the ocean conservation charity founded by Olympic medallists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, asked for details of the incident.
‘‘The fishing operator had a technical problem with their electronic reporting equipment and were unable to submit ‘protected species interaction’ reports in real time,’’ Reid said. ‘‘They fixed this technical problem, and the correct and accurate reports were submitted.’’
Breaching the regulations can earn operators fines of up to $20,000.
A month earlier, another bluefin tuna fishing vessel killed 18 white-chinned petrels and Buller’s albatross over a four-day period. An observer on board noted the crew were complying with mitigation measures. However,
the skipper chose to keep fishing in the same area after the first day of captures, moving only after a second day of deaths.
In September an endangered male New Zealand sea lion was found dead in a scampi trawl net. Six days later a trawler killed another male while targeting the southern blue whiting fishery.
Parker was also alerted when four dusky dolphins were killed by a vessel trawling for barracouta off Banks Peninsula in January 2022.