Trophia has been contracted by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) to characterise the inshore fisheries in FMA 2 and identify abundance indices for the key species . The specific objectives for this project include:

1.  To characterise the FMA 2 inshore fisheries .

2. To analyse existing commercial catch and effort data to the end of 2008/09 fishing year and undertake CPUE standardisations .

The Inshore fisheries in FMA 2 include most of the trawl, line, and net methods. Although some of the main target and bycatch species are the subject of other MFish projects (either underway or proposed), they will be done with diifferent objectives and will yield different results.  This project is planned to provide information for the Area 2 Fisheries Plan and is intended to provide information on interactions between fisheries and species complexes, which will not be achieved through the species specific projects.

There has been little work done in New Zealand on characterising mixed species fisheries and the interactions within them. Trophia scientists are interested in developing new methods and ways of presenting data that will describe the interactions among fisheries in a way that is useful to managers.

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This work is funded by MFish project INS2009/03