Trophia has been contracted by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) to collect biological information describing highly migratory fish species from shore-based fish processing and handling facilities . The specific objectives for this project include:

1. To continue the catch sampling programme for swordfish, southern bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, Pacific bluefin tuna, and yellowfin tuna for the 2009/10 fishing year.

2. To continue the catch sampling programme for swordfish, southern bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, Pacific bluefin tuna, and yellowfin tuna for the 2010/11 fishing year .

3.To continue the catch sampling programme for swordfish, southern bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, Pacific bluefin tuna, and yellowfin tuna for the 2011/12 fishing year .

Individual southern bluefin tuna wholeweights have not been collected in fisher logbooks since the introduction of the redesigned TLCER form in March 2003.

Historically, most biological information about HMS was collected by observers at sea in the tuna longline fishery.  Whilst observer covereage of the larger vessels of the charter fleet is high, this fleet participates almost exclusively in the southern bluefin tuna longline fishery operating off the west coast of the South Island.

The southern bluefin longline fishery that operates off the east coast of the North Island, and the extensive Bigeye longline fishery are mainly fished by smaller domestic vessels, and this fleet is not adequately observed.  These more northerly fisheries account for most of the associated bycatch of  Pacific bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna and swordfish. This project aims to augment the observer length frequency  data, with length estimates based on individual processed weights of fish landed by the domestic fleet.

The low quantity of data collected annually due to low levels of observer coverage often means waiting several years to answer key questions and greatly reduces our ability to monitor the components of the stock that migrate through or reside in New Zealand fisheries waters.

In response to this, a programme has been set up to take advantage of the large size and high individual value of these HMS species. For many high value species it is possible to obtain individual size/weight data on a high proportion of the catch through records kept by fish processors. This programme was developed under TUN2005/02 and has continued under TUN2006/01 and TUN2007-02.

The current project will continue this time series, but with the emphasis on simplifying and automating the process and the outputs

This work is funded by MFish project HMS2009/02