Latest news with #KarliThomas
Scoop
08-07-2025
- General
- Scoop
Key Orange Roughy Population On Verge Of Collapse: Government Considers Closure
New data reveals that New Zealand's main orange roughy fishery, accounting for half of the country's total catch, is on the brink of collapse, with one model showing it may have reached that point already, and the government's considering closing it. The scientific report from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), released last week, indicates that the fishery, known as East and South Chatham Rise (ESCR) is in a dire state, with over 80% of the original orange roughy population wiped out. The stock assessment puts the population at 8-18% of its original size (10% is generally considered the collapse of a fishery) Meanwhile, a Fisheries NZ consultation document indicates the government is considering closing the fishery, which has never been closed before. 'This data is consistent with what environmentalists have been saying for years - that bottom trawling has pushed this species to the brink,' says Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Ellie Hooper on board the Rainbow Warrior which has just been on the Chatham Rise. 'It's clear that this fishery needs to be closed, and that key spawning habitats - seamounts and features - need to be protected from bottom trawling for sustainable fish populations.' The wider Chatham Rise fishery has recently been under scrutiny after it was revealed a bottom trawler, which was confirmed as fishing for orange roughy, hauled up 6 tonnes of protected stony coral in a single trawl at the end of last year. 'What we're seeing is a perfect storm of poor fishery management: a stock driven to the brink of collapse by overfishing, the loss of key spawning grounds through heavy trawling on seamounts, and the wholesale destruction of ancient coral ecosystems,' said Karli Thomas of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. 'This is a fishery that's been so overfished it's not predicted to recover for at least a generation - and that's just the fish population' says Barry Weeber of Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa (ECO). 'Those same bottom trawlers destroy corals that can be hundreds, even thousands of years old, and will take many lifetimes to recover. If we want a healthy ocean and fisheries for the next generation, we need to change the way we fish' This same (ESCR) Chatham Rise orange roughy fishery lost its Marine Stewardship Council 'sustainable' tick in 2023 after a stock survey revealed declining catch rates instead of the projected stock recovery, and the stock assessment was declared invalid. Next week, the Environmental Law Initiative is taking the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries to court over the mismanagement of the wider Chatham Rise orange roughy fishery. The case will be heard in the High Court, Wellington on 7-9 July 2025.
RNZ News
08-07-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Conservation group calls for Chatham Rise orange roughy fishery closure, bottom trawling ban
An orange roughy. Photo: Mountains to Sea A conservation group says the country's largest orange roughy fishery is "past the brink" of collapse - but shutting parts of it down will not be enough to save it. The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) has begun consultation on this year's orange roughy catch limit, and has included the option to close the East and South Chatham Rise fishery. In the early '80s and '90s, 20,000-30,000 tonnes of orange roughy were pulled out of the ocean every year in the area that spans the Chatham to the sub-Antarctic Islands - known as the Chatham Rise or ORH 3B. But an MPI review this year estimated some orange roughy populations had reduced by up to 90 percent. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition said closing a section of the Chatham Rise fishery was a start, but not enough - and wanted to see a blanket ban on bottom sea trawling in all orange roughy breeding grounds. Meanwhile, a case over orange roughy management decisions in 2023 will wrap up on Wednesday at the High Court in Wellington. Citing the years following the "gold rush" of the '80s and '90s, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition's Karli Thomas said the proposal to shut down parts of the orange roughy fishery was nothing new. However, she said the current proposal was significant, given the size of the fishery, and a first in recent years. After reducing the catch limit by 40 percent in 2023 - from 7967 to 4752 - due to sustainability concerns, MPI is asking for feedback on further reductions for the Chatham Rise orange roughy fishery. The options include a catch limit reduction by 23 percent, 42 percent or 60 percent, with the fourth option seeing the closure of the sub-fishery, the East and South Chatham Rise, and the fastest return to healthy stock levels. Thomas said her group would submit in support of the fourth option - but was sceptical that alone would save the fishery when modelling suggested some parts of it were already collapsed. Deep Sea Conservation Coalition's Karli Thomas. Photo: Supplied / Deep Sea Conservation Coalition "We're definitely past the brink. "All the modelling is showing that 80 percent of the population has gone, in some cases more than 90 percent is gone, and that's generally considered the point of collapse for a fishery." She said the fishery's "disastrous state" was a reflection of poor management and wanted to see a complete ban on bottom sea trawling of the fish's breeding grounds and habitat - the impacts of which, she said, were two-fold. "Its habitat is being destroyed, because bottom trawls basically plough through coral gardens , and secondly these fish are being targeted in the very places - the seamounts (underwater mountains) - they go to breed. "So, if we're also disrupting their life cycle - the fish really just don't stand a chance." She said a single orange roughy trawl brought up six tonnes of coral last year. MPI director of fisheries management Emma Taylor said bycatch of that scale, while unfortunate, was very rare. "There are a range of measures in place to minimise the effect of fishing on coral and other habitats, including closures to prevent dredging and trawling on 32 percent of New Zealand's seabed." Despite a catch limit of 4752 tonnes in the 2023-2024 year, only 2691 tonnes of orange roughy were reportedly caught. The figures followed a gradual increase in catch limit size, after a quota low of 3600 tonnes in 2012-2013. A MPI survey of orange roughy stock at the East and South Chatham Rise in 2023 found stock levels were either "flat or declining" - and inconsistent with a previous assessment. That assessment was later rejected. Taylor said the uncertainty about the state of the orange roughy stock led to the precautionary and significant 40 percent catch limit reduction. The management decisions in 2023 are currently being challenged in the High Court at Wellington, with the Environmental Law Initiative claiming the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries failed to consider the harmful effects of bottom trawling in the Chatham Rise. A video still showing orange roughy swimming up to one kilometre below the surface off the South Island. Photo: SUPPLIED Taylor said in the time since, there had been significant work done to update the model used to assess the fishery, "as well as acoustic surveys and other research into the state of the fishery". New information showed more needed to be done to put the "fishery back on track to meet sustainability targets", she said, and Fisheries New Zealand was asking for public feedback on a range of options - including closure. A May 2025 assessment estimated orange roughy stock levels between 8-18 percent of the original biomass (population). The target management range is 30-50 percent. Taylor said orange roughy fisheries had been closed in the past due to concerns about sustainability, as had other fisheries. "Following this consultation, we will prepare advice for Fisheries Minister Shane Jones to make decisions on any changes, which would come into effect for the fishing year starting 1 October 2025." Consultation runs until 28 July. The orange roughy, which lives at depths of up to 1.5km, is slow growing and can live up to 120-130 years - with some reaching more than 200 years-old. Thomas said their long life cycle made them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. She said although they began breeding in their mid-twenties to thirties, it was not until they were in their seventies or eighties that they spawned every year. She said the ocean had an amazing ability to recover, but it would likely take a human lifetime for the orange roughy to bounce back. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
11-06-2025
- General
- Scoop
Protected Corals Destroyed In Six-Tonne Bycatch 'Disaster' From A Single Bottom Trawl
Press Release – Joint Media Statement Environmentalists are describing the incident as a stark reminder of the horrors of bottom trawling and are renewing calls for the destructive fishing method to be banned on seamounts and other vital deep sea habitats. Key points: 6 tonnes of bycatch, mostly stony coral, was dragged up in a single bottom trawl last year Around the weight of a male African elephant, the heaviest land mammal on earth. Stony corals (Scleractinia species) are reef-building corals of the deep sea around Aotearoa. Stony corals are protected species under the New Zealand Wildlife Act. Deep sea corals are particularly found on seamounts and similar features. Reef-building corals provide critical habitat for many other deep sea species. If it happened in international waters, the area would've been closed immediately. BREAKING: It's been revealed that a New Zealand bottom trawling vessel has pulled up six tonnes of protected stony coral in a single trawl – making it the worst reported case of coral destruction in New Zealand waters in over a decade. Environmentalists are describing the incident as 'a stark reminder of the horrors of bottom trawling' and are renewing calls for the destructive fishing method to be banned on seamounts and other vital deep sea habitats. The stony coral, which is a critical reef building coral and protected in New Zealand, was pulled up by an unnamed trawler towards the end of the 2024 while it was fishing on the Chatham Rise, a large underwater plateau with seamounts and a diverse range of ocean life, off the South Island's east coast. The data was released by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) only after an official information request by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) and is the largest reported coral bycatch since a similar incident in 2008. Karli Thomas from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, who's at the United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC) in France, says the incident is 'a disaster for deep sea corals' and is 'truly heartbreaking'. Reef building corals, like stony corals, are slow growing and can live for thousands of years. Coral reefs in the deep sea provide critical habitats for a variety of deep sea life. 'If this incident had happened in the international waters of the South Pacific, the area would have been immediately closed to trawling. Coral must be protected if we want healthy and thriving ocean ecosystems and this latest coral bycatch is a reminder of how destructive bottom trawling is – and why it must be banned from ancient and fragile deep sea habitats' says Thomas. Thomas noted that NZ trawlers destroy huge amounts of coral every year, with the fleet reporting tonnes of coral bycatch annually: it 22/3 the observer-reported amount of coral bycatch from trawlers was over six tonnes – but only 22% of trawls were covered by observers. Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, Chief Executive of WWF-New Zealand, is also on the ground at UNOC and says this incident further underscores the absurdity and unsavouriness of Seafood New Zealand's recent greenwashing of the widespread reliance on bottom-trawling in Aotearoa's commercial fisheries. 'If people were horrified by the bottom-trawling depicted in Sir David Attenborough's new Ocean film, then they will be shocked to know that some of what takes place in Aotearoa is actually far worse than that footage. These images of a trawl net bursting with tonnes of bulldozed corals speak for themselves.' While MPI is attempting to argue the bycatch was a mix of natural and dead coral – and mud – Barry Weeber from ECO calls this 'disingenuous'. 'There is no way that official coral bycatch would be registered in the data with mud making up part of that weight. There are separate codes for an observer to record non-biological material on vessels and MPI reports the bycatch on their public database as corals, not corals and mud. The government spin that this catch is half mud is simply ludicrous and reeks of an industry-captured government department defending the indefensible. The image they provided doesn't show any mud at all.' Weeber says that mud making up a significant portion of the catch seems unlikely given the towing speed and having to retrieve a net from nearly 1km down: any mud would be washed out of the net. He also noted dead coral was an important part of the ecosystem. The release of the coral bycatch information comes as the New Zealand government is attending UNOC. One of the issues that will be discussed is a global fund for coral reef conservation, to which Foreign Minister Winston Peters has pledged NZD $16.2 million (USD $10 million). 'It's deeply ironic that the New Zealand government is internationally promoting coral conservation while wholesale coral destruction like this continues in our waters, and bottom trawlers are still allowed to trawl on seamounts and features – areas we know are hotspots for protected corals,' said Karli Thomas. Greenpeace spokesperson Ellie Hooper says Greenpeace witnessed the kind of destruction caused by trawlers in the deep sea first hand, during a seamount expedition in March where deep sea cameras were used to survey the seafloor, including in intensively trawled areas. 'What we saw was shocking; hours and hours of footage of lifeless fragmented and broken coral – a coral graveyard in the deep. The bottom trawling industry has gotten away with this kind of destruction in the waters of Aotearoa and the South Pacific for too long. Trawling causes indiscriminate damage to these vital habitats. It's indefensible and it must stop.' Environmental groups have repeatedly called on the New Zealand government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts and other areas where protected corals are known to occur, and to stop issuing permits to New Zealand vessels to bottom trawl on seamounts in international waters. New Zealand is the only country with vessels still bottom trawling seamounts in the South Pacific high seas. Note: The NZ Ministry of Primary Industries released information on 29 May 2025 in response to an OIA request of 19 March, for information and images of any incidents of benthic fishery bycatch of 500 kilograms or more in the last 12 months. [OIA available on request] The critical part of their response was: 'In the previous 12 months, there has only been one trawl bycatch event for protected benthic species over 500kg. Reported in the October to December 2024 quarter is a single capture of a reported 6,000 kg of stony coral on the Chatham Rise. Initial identification has confirmed the coral as a stony coral, and that the capture was likely to include a mix of live and dead coral, and mud. Identification will be confirmed as part of an ongoing project to identify observer samples. Further information reported by the fisher and the on-board observer indicate that the trawl net missed the intended previously trawled area.' The relevant data from the MPI quarterly reporting (which combines all trawls of this area, so will include other coral bycatch by trawlers in FMA4 over the period Oct-Dec 2024) can be found here: Non-fish and protected species caught by commercial fishers Fishing Year: 24-25 Quarter: 1 (that means, sometime in the period October-December 2024) Fishing Area: FMA4 South-East (Chatham Rise) Method: Trawl Protected species: Cnidaria Species code: COU – True Coral (Unidentified) Weight: 6,163.24 kilograms (over 6 tonnes) *Note this includes other coral bycatch in this area in this 3-month period, as well as the individual 6 tonne bycatch incident.
Scoop
11-06-2025
- General
- Scoop
Protected Corals Destroyed In Six-Tonne Bycatch 'Disaster' From A Single Bottom Trawl
Press Release – Joint Media Statement Environmentalists are describing the incident as a stark reminder of the horrors of bottom trawling and are renewing calls for the destructive fishing method to be banned on seamounts and other vital deep sea habitats. Key points: 6 tonnes of bycatch, mostly stony coral, was dragged up in a single bottom trawl last year Around the weight of a male African elephant, the heaviest land mammal on earth. Stony corals (Scleractinia species) are reef-building corals of the deep sea around Aotearoa. Stony corals are protected species under the New Zealand Wildlife Act. Deep sea corals are particularly found on seamounts and similar features. Reef-building corals provide critical habitat for many other deep sea species. If it happened in international waters, the area would've been closed immediately. BREAKING: It's been revealed that a New Zealand bottom trawling vessel has pulled up six tonnes of protected stony coral in a single trawl – making it the worst reported case of coral destruction in New Zealand waters in over a decade. Environmentalists are describing the incident as 'a stark reminder of the horrors of bottom trawling' and are renewing calls for the destructive fishing method to be banned on seamounts and other vital deep sea habitats. The stony coral, which is a critical reef building coral and protected in New Zealand, was pulled up by an unnamed trawler towards the end of the 2024 while it was fishing on the Chatham Rise, a large underwater plateau with seamounts and a diverse range of ocean life, off the South Island's east coast. The data was released by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) only after an official information request by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) and is the largest reported coral bycatch since a similar incident in 2008. Karli Thomas from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, who's at the United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC) in France, says the incident is 'a disaster for deep sea corals' and is 'truly heartbreaking'. Reef building corals, like stony corals, are slow growing and can live for thousands of years. Coral reefs in the deep sea provide critical habitats for a variety of deep sea life. 'If this incident had happened in the international waters of the South Pacific, the area would have been immediately closed to trawling. Coral must be protected if we want healthy and thriving ocean ecosystems and this latest coral bycatch is a reminder of how destructive bottom trawling is – and why it must be banned from ancient and fragile deep sea habitats' says Thomas. Thomas noted that NZ trawlers destroy huge amounts of coral every year, with the fleet reporting tonnes of coral bycatch annually: it 22/3 the observer-reported amount of coral bycatch from trawlers was over six tonnes – but only 22% of trawls were covered by observers. Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, Chief Executive of WWF-New Zealand, is also on the ground at UNOC and says this incident further underscores the absurdity and unsavouriness of Seafood New Zealand's recent greenwashing of the widespread reliance on bottom-trawling in Aotearoa's commercial fisheries. 'If people were horrified by the bottom-trawling depicted in Sir David Attenborough's new Ocean film, then they will be shocked to know that some of what takes place in Aotearoa is actually far worse than that footage. These images of a trawl net bursting with tonnes of bulldozed corals speak for themselves.' While MPI is attempting to argue the bycatch was a mix of natural and dead coral – and mud – Barry Weeber from ECO calls this 'disingenuous'. 'There is no way that official coral bycatch would be registered in the data with mud making up part of that weight. There are separate codes for an observer to record non-biological material on vessels and MPI reports the bycatch on their public database as corals, not corals and mud. The government spin that this catch is half mud is simply ludicrous and reeks of an industry-captured government department defending the indefensible. The image they provided doesn't show any mud at all.' Weeber says that mud making up a significant portion of the catch seems unlikely given the towing speed and having to retrieve a net from nearly 1km down: any mud would be washed out of the net. He also noted dead coral was an important part of the ecosystem. The release of the coral bycatch information comes as the New Zealand government is attending UNOC. One of the issues that will be discussed is a global fund for coral reef conservation, to which Foreign Minister Winston Peters has pledged NZD $16.2 million (USD $10 million). 'It's deeply ironic that the New Zealand government is internationally promoting coral conservation while wholesale coral destruction like this continues in our waters, and bottom trawlers are still allowed to trawl on seamounts and features – areas we know are hotspots for protected corals,' said Karli Thomas. Greenpeace spokesperson Ellie Hooper says Greenpeace witnessed the kind of destruction caused by trawlers in the deep sea first hand, during a seamount expedition in March where deep sea cameras were used to survey the seafloor, including in intensively trawled areas. 'What we saw was shocking; hours and hours of footage of lifeless fragmented and broken coral – a coral graveyard in the deep. The bottom trawling industry has gotten away with this kind of destruction in the waters of Aotearoa and the South Pacific for too long. Trawling causes indiscriminate damage to these vital habitats. It's indefensible and it must stop.' Environmental groups have repeatedly called on the New Zealand government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts and other areas where protected corals are known to occur, and to stop issuing permits to New Zealand vessels to bottom trawl on seamounts in international waters. New Zealand is the only country with vessels still bottom trawling seamounts in the South Pacific high seas. Note: The NZ Ministry of Primary Industries released information on 29 May 2025 in response to an OIA request of 19 March, for information and images of any incidents of benthic fishery bycatch of 500 kilograms or more in the last 12 months. [OIA available on request] The critical part of their response was: 'In the previous 12 months, there has only been one trawl bycatch event for protected benthic species over 500kg. Reported in the October to December 2024 quarter is a single capture of a reported 6,000 kg of stony coral on the Chatham Rise. Initial identification has confirmed the coral as a stony coral, and that the capture was likely to include a mix of live and dead coral, and mud. Identification will be confirmed as part of an ongoing project to identify observer samples. Further information reported by the fisher and the on-board observer indicate that the trawl net missed the intended previously trawled area.' The relevant data from the MPI quarterly reporting (which combines all trawls of this area, so will include other coral bycatch by trawlers in FMA4 over the period Oct-Dec 2024) can be found here: Non-fish and protected species caught by commercial fishers Fishing Year: 24-25 Quarter: 1 (that means, sometime in the period October-December 2024) Fishing Area: FMA4 South-East (Chatham Rise) Method: Trawl Protected species: Cnidaria Species code: COU – True Coral (Unidentified) Weight: 6,163.24 kilograms (over 6 tonnes) *Note this includes other coral bycatch in this area in this 3-month period, as well as the individual 6 tonne bycatch incident.
Scoop
11-06-2025
- General
- Scoop
Protected Corals Destroyed In Six-Tonne Bycatch 'Disaster' From A Single Bottom Trawl
Key points: 6 tonnes of bycatch, mostly stony coral, was dragged up in a single bottom trawl last year Around the weight of a male African elephant, the heaviest land mammal on earth. Stony corals (Scleractinia species) are reef-building corals of the deep sea around Aotearoa. Stony corals are protected species under the New Zealand Wildlife Act. Deep sea corals are particularly found on seamounts and similar features. Reef-building corals provide critical habitat for many other deep sea species. If it happened in international waters, the area would've been closed immediately. BREAKING: It's been revealed that a New Zealand bottom trawling vessel has pulled up six tonnes of protected stony coral in a single trawl - making it the worst reported case of coral destruction in New Zealand waters in over a decade. Environmentalists are describing the incident as 'a stark reminder of the horrors of bottom trawling' and are renewing calls for the destructive fishing method to be banned on seamounts and other vital deep sea habitats. The stony coral, which is a critical reef building coral and protected in New Zealand, was pulled up by an unnamed trawler towards the end of the 2024 while it was fishing on the Chatham Rise, a large underwater plateau with seamounts and a diverse range of ocean life, off the South Island's east coast. The data was released by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) only after an official information request by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) and is the largest reported coral bycatch since a similar incident in 2008. Karli Thomas from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, who's at the United Nations Oceans Conference (UNOC) in France, says the incident is 'a disaster for deep sea corals' and is 'truly heartbreaking'. Reef building corals, like stony corals, are slow growing and can live for thousands of years. Coral reefs in the deep sea provide critical habitats for a variety of deep sea life. 'If this incident had happened in the international waters of the South Pacific, the area would have been immediately closed to trawling. Coral must be protected if we want healthy and thriving ocean ecosystems and this latest coral bycatch is a reminder of how destructive bottom trawling is - and why it must be banned from ancient and fragile deep sea habitats' says Thomas. Thomas noted that NZ trawlers destroy huge amounts of coral every year, with the fleet reporting tonnes of coral bycatch annually: it 22/3 the observer-reported amount of coral bycatch from trawlers was over six tonnes - but only 22% of trawls were covered by observers. Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, Chief Executive of WWF-New Zealand, is also on the ground at UNOC and says this incident further underscores the absurdity and unsavouriness of Seafood New Zealand's recent greenwashing of the widespread reliance on bottom-trawling in Aotearoa's commercial fisheries. 'If people were horrified by the bottom-trawling depicted in Sir David Attenborough's new Ocean film, then they will be shocked to know that some of what takes place in Aotearoa is actually far worse than that footage. These images of a trawl net bursting with tonnes of bulldozed corals speak for themselves.' While MPI is attempting to argue the bycatch was a mix of natural and dead coral - and mud - Barry Weeber from ECO calls this 'disingenuous'. 'There is no way that official coral bycatch would be registered in the data with mud making up part of that weight. There are separate codes for an observer to record non-biological material on vessels and MPI reports the bycatch on their public database as corals, not corals and mud. The government spin that this catch is half mud is simply ludicrous and reeks of an industry-captured government department defending the indefensible. The image they provided doesn't show any mud at all.' Weeber says that mud making up a significant portion of the catch seems unlikely given the towing speed and having to retrieve a net from nearly 1km down: any mud would be washed out of the net. He also noted dead coral was an important part of the ecosystem. The release of the coral bycatch information comes as the New Zealand government is attending UNOC. One of the issues that will be discussed is a global fund for coral reef conservation, to which Foreign Minister Winston Peters has pledged NZD $16.2 million (USD $10 million). 'It's deeply ironic that the New Zealand government is internationally promoting coral conservation while wholesale coral destruction like this continues in our waters, and bottom trawlers are still allowed to trawl on seamounts and features - areas we know are hotspots for protected corals,' said Karli Thomas. Greenpeace spokesperson Ellie Hooper says Greenpeace witnessed the kind of destruction caused by trawlers in the deep sea first hand, during a seamount expedition in March where deep sea cameras were used to survey the seafloor, including in intensively trawled areas. 'What we saw was shocking; hours and hours of footage of lifeless fragmented and broken coral - a coral graveyard in the deep. The bottom trawling industry has gotten away with this kind of destruction in the waters of Aotearoa and the South Pacific for too long. Trawling causes indiscriminate damage to these vital habitats. It's indefensible and it must stop.' Environmental groups have repeatedly called on the New Zealand government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts and other areas where protected corals are known to occur, and to stop issuing permits to New Zealand vessels to bottom trawl on seamounts in international waters. New Zealand is the only country with vessels still bottom trawling seamounts in the South Pacific high seas. Note: The NZ Ministry of Primary Industries released information on 29 May 2025 in response to an OIA request of 19 March, for information and images of any incidents of benthic fishery bycatch of 500 kilograms or more in the last 12 months. [OIA available on request] The critical part of their response was: 'In the previous 12 months, there has only been one trawl bycatch event for protected benthic species over 500kg. Reported in the October to December 2024 quarter is a single capture of a reported 6,000 kg of stony coral on the Chatham Rise. Initial identification has confirmed the coral as a stony coral, and that the capture was likely to include a mix of live and dead coral, and mud. Identification will be confirmed as part of an ongoing project to identify observer samples. Further information reported by the fisher and the on-board observer indicate that the trawl net missed the intended previously trawled area.' The relevant data from the MPI quarterly reporting (which combines all trawls of this area, so will include other coral bycatch by trawlers in FMA4 over the period Oct-Dec 2024) can be found here: Non-fish and protected species caught by commercial fishers Fishing Year: 24-25 Quarter: 1 (that means, sometime in the period October-December 2024) Fishing Area: FMA4 South-East (Chatham Rise) Method: Trawl Protected species: Cnidaria Species code: COU - True Coral (Unidentified) Weight: 6,163.24 kilograms (over 6 tonnes) *Note this includes other coral bycatch in this area in this 3-month period, as well as the individual 6 tonne bycatch incident.
