Trophia has been contracted by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) to determine relative abundance for snapper in SNA 8.. The specific objective for this project include:

1.  To characterise the SNA 8 fishery and update the CPUE analyses for trawl fisheries in each area of SNA 8 using data up to the end of 2007-08 .

The snapper fishery is New Zealand’s most valuable inshore finfish fishery by value.  SNA 8 is the second largest commercial snapper fishery. Snapper also support important fisheries for recreational fishers and Maori.

The 2005 stock assessment indicated that current biomass (start of year 2004–05) was between 8% and 12% B0 and the biomass was predicted to slowly increase at the TACC level of 1500 t. However, from 1 October 2005 the TACC was reduced to 1300 t to ensure a faster rebuild of the stock.

The stock assessments for snapper rely mainly on the absolute abundance estimates from tagging programmes. Absolute abundance of SNA 8 was last estimated in 2002 and the next mark-recapture study is scheduled for 2011. Standardized CPUE series, updated every three years, are used to provide crude indices of relative abundance in the periods between tagging programmes. The SNA 8 CPUE index was last updated to the end of the 2003/04 fishing year (SNA 2004-01).

According to the Snapper Medium Term Research Plan, it is assumed that the stock will be monitored using standardized CPUE (updated every three years) and annual catch-at- age until the 2012 assessment. 

This work is funded by MFish project SNA2008/01