Trophia has been contracted by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries (MFish) to assess the feasibility of using Danish seine catch to monitor the John dory fishery in JDO 1. The specific objectives for this project include:

1.  To characterise the JDO 1fishery by analysing existing commercial catch and effort data.

2. To assess if CPUE can be used as a measure of abundance and to attempt to standardize CPUE for the JDO 1 Danish seine fishery (if feasible) .

John Dory (Zeus faber; JDO) is an important component of commercial, recreational and customary fisheries in the northern half of New Zealand. The commercial fishery in JDO1 is the largest in the country accounting for 50-80% of total national landings over the last decade (Ministry of Fisheries, 2008).

There have been two attempts at standardising CPUE for JDO 1 in the last 10 years both based on the bottom trawl method. To date there has been no attempt to assess the Danish seine catch as a measure of abundance

Results of the characterisation will be used to determine the data grooming procedures for the CPUE analysis and which fisheries need to be assessed and the spatio-temporal analyses required in order to ensure the CPUE analysis is reflective of the fishery. The characterisation will also provide valuable input for the fisheries plan that is presently being developed. A long-term time series of CPUE is a useful tool to monitor fish stocks and interpret fluctuations in abundance.  The proposed analysis, if successful, should provide time series of relative abundance indices for John Dory

This work is funded by MFish project JDO2009/03