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New Zealand Sea Lions and the Squid Fishery

Though sea lion deaths were recorded in the first experimental squid trawls undertaken near the Auckland Islands in 1978, sea lions are still referred to as an "accidental bycatch" of the squid fishery. In fact, sea lion deaths are an inevitable consequence of trawling near the Auckland Islands. A maximum kill limit of sea lions, raised for the year 2002 to 79, was put in place by the Ministry of Fisheries in response to concerns about the sea lion bycatch. The Minister of Fisheries has a legal obligation to close the fishery for the year before this limit is exceeded. Current controls do not include orange roughy, oreos, southern blue whiting or scampi fisheries around the Auckland Islands, which have also killed sea lions.

Number Killed in Previous Years

Since the Auckland Islands squid fishery began in 1979 around 2000 New Zealand sea lions have been estimated to have been drowned. Squid is caught mainly by foreign chartered trawlers hauling in nets 60 m high and over 150 metres wide that are towed by large trawlers. Ministry of Fisheries (previously MAF) have had observer coverage on commercial vessels since 1988. In the last 10 years around 650 sea lions are known to have been killed in the squidfishery. Sea lions have also been reported drowned in the orange roughy, scampi, and southern blue whiting fishery around the Auckland Islands and in the jack mackerel fishery at the edge of the Snares shelf.

Table 1. Number of New Zealand sea lions killed in Auckland Islands Fisheries

Year	TACC (tonnes)	Reported Catch	% TACC caught	FRML	Total SQU 6T estimated mortalities	Cumulative estimated mortality
86/87	32333	16025	50
87/88	32333	7021	22		33	33
88/89	35933	33462	93		141	174
89/90	42118	19859	47		117	291
90/91	30190	10658	35		21	312
91/92	30190	10861	36	32	82	394
92/93	30369	1551	5	63	17	411
93/94	30369	34534	114	63	32	443
94/95	30369	30683	101	69	109	552
95/96	30369	14041	46	73	101	653
96/97	30369	19843	65	79	123	776
97/98	30369	7044	23	63	62	838
98/99	30369	950	3	64	14	852
99/00	32369	6241	19	65	71	923
00/01	32369	3254	10	75	67	990
01/02	32369	11502	36	79	84	1074
02/03	32369	6887	21	70	39	1113
03/04	32369	34634	107	62	118	1231
04/05	32369	27314	84	115	115	1346
05/06	32369	16862	52	150	110	1456

TACC = Total Allowable Commercial Catch

Sea Lion Limits

In 1992, in an effort to limit the impact of the squid SQU 6T trawl fishery on sea lions, a catch limit or fishing related mortality limit (FRML) of sea lions was set by the government. This system of setting a 'kill quota' is still in place today.The limits are agreed by the Ministers of Fisheries and Conservation after consultation with all stakeholders.

Forest & Bird has consistently proposed a much lower limit with the aim of reducing mortality towards zero.

Legislation

The mortality of New Zealand sea lions in fisheries is managed by the Fisheries Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Since 1 October 1996 new provisions were added to the Marine Mammals Protection Act that allow the Minister of Conservation to develop a Population Management Plan for protected species at risk from fisheries. No plan currently exists for any species.

The Fisheries Act 1996 has provisions to control the by-catch of protected species - both marine mammals and seabirds (section 15). Under section 15 the Minister of Fisheries must apply the limit agreed in the population management plan or if there is no plan, the Minister must set a limit under sub-section (2). The Minister has an obligation under section 15(5)(b) "for the purpose of ensuring that any limit on fishing-related mortality is not exceeded" (our emphasis). The Minister must also consult the Minister of Conservation.

To achieve the requirements of the Act the agencies have to establish a process that will ensure the limit is not exceeded. As the table above shows, in practise the FRML has not always been adhered to.

Industry Code of Practice

The industry has developed a voluntary code of practice for marine mammal interactions. The code originally included a provision that any vessel that catches three or more sea lions will be removed from the fishery so that a review can be undertaken. In 1997 two vessels caught three or more sea lions, with one vessel catching more than seven. None of these vessels were removed and no review was undertaken. The industry breached its own code of practice, further bringing into question the effectiveness of the code. The industry later dropped this provision.

In 2002 members of the industry have ignored the Ministry of Fisheries operational plan which was developed by the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister of Conservation. As the Minister of Fisheries has confirmed in correspondence to Forest & Bird that: "Some operators within the SQU6T fishery have not complied with several elements on the operational plan… This situation meant that the catch of sea lions against the MALFiRM could not be measured as intended in the plan." (Dated 28 March 2002).

The Minister of Fisheries asked for a review of the 2002 season as he "is not about to go through this shambles again". No review took place.

Squid Fishery

The squid fishery is very variable. Squid only live for about a year before spawning and thus the number of squid present every year is mainly dependent on environmental conditions. In the last 10 years the reported catch in the fishery around the Auckland Islands has varied between 950 tonnes and 34,634 tonnes. As Table 1 shows, the catch limit has been exceeded on a number of occasions. The Auckland Islands squid fishery represents 25 percent of the New Zealand squid fishery, which has a total catch limit of 123,332 tonnes.

Squid is caught mainly by chartered Russian (25-50%), Korean (14-24%), Ukrainian (9-23%) and Japanese trawlers fishing for New Zealand companies.

The fishery usually runs from the beginning of February to the end of April or into May. In 1996 only 14,041 tonnes had been caught by the time the fishery was closed in early May. In 1997 the fishery started earlier, in the middle of January and an estimated 19,843 tonnes were caught. In 1999 squid was in low numbers and only 950 tonnes were caught and the fishery was not closed. In 2001 it was not much better with only 3,254 tonne caught and the fishery was not closed.

The sustainable catch limit for squid in any of the New Zealand squid fisheries is not known. Research into the squid ceased in 1993 and the current catch limits are arbitrary and have rarely been reached. The squid fishery is managed under the Quota Management System. While squid are part of the sea lions diet this fact was not considered when setting the catch limit.

2003 was the sixth year out of eight that the fishery was closed early because of New Zealand sea lion deaths. Because of the low observer coverage and the industry obtaining an injunction to continue fishing the limit was exceeded.

Other Fisheries

Ministry of Fisheries observer coverage has been patchy in the scampi, orange roughy and southern blue whiting fisheries around the Auckland Islands so the total number of deaths is unknown. The orange roughy fishery in the area has collapsed. Southern blue whiting and scampi may be a bigger threat in the future as they are added to the quota management system and more effort is put in by fishers to take the allowable catch. Forest & Bird considers any limit and controls to protect the sea lion should include all fisheries as this is the requirement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Marine Mammal Exclusion Devices

Despite initially opposing the idea, almost 100% of vessels in the squid SQU 6T trawl fishery have sealion exclusion devices (SLEDs) installed in their nets.

It is unclear whether the device works and ejects live seals. If it just ejects dead or dying animals then the device could just be a means of obscuring the impact of fishing on sea lions.

Trials of the SLEDs on trawl nets in 2001 and 2002 resulted in sea lions suffering life-threatening injuries. The 2001 autopsy "data suggest that sea lions ejected through the Sea Lion Excusion Devices (SLED) may be subjected to potentially lethal blunt trauma. …Animals so affected would be unlikely to survive." The SLED is worse than useless if it ejects mortally injured sea lions, which are not counted in any limits on sea lion deaths.

The results also indicate that the SLED does not always work as proposed and there is a significant number of failed ejections of sea lions from the net - at least 10-15 percent. In 2002 that increased to over 40%.

While design changes may improve the SLED it is very unclear whether this will be successful. The fishing industry is also complaining about the amount of fish lost by vessels using the SLED. An additional problem is that the squid fishery itself may be having a negative impact on the sea lions recovery as squid is a significant proportion of their diet. We have asked the Department of Conservation to carry out further research on the importance of squid in the sea lions diet and the factors that cause squid variability.

More work is needed into the SLEDs. The industry has initiated this by undertaking research during the West Coast South Island hoki fishery, which kills around 1000 fur seals annually.

The fishing industry must also seriously look at the option of using jiggers around the Auckland Islands. Jiggers operate by using bright lights and multi-hooked jigs to catch squid that aggregate under the boat. Despite protests from industry that jigging is not possible around the Auckland Islands, jiggers can and have been successfully used in SQU 6T in the past. See "Save our Sealions" Technical Report: Conservation management issues and options for the NZ sea lion, Phocartos hookeri (PDF)

This page was updated on 21 May, 2007