From 29 June through July, DOC and its partners are running lobster surveys across five marine protection sites around the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana. Two contracted commercial vessels, Jackpot and Carolyn Marie, will be working the sites using around 50 baited cage traps placed inside and outside protected areas to allow direct comparison between fished and unfished populations.
The survey locations are Te Hāwere-a-Maki/Goat Island, Tāwharanui, Kawau Island, Te Hauturu-o-Toi/Little Barrier Island, and the Mokohīnau Islands.
Boaties can identify the research gear by its surface floats and cattle tags marked ‘research’, along with a permit number and contact phone number. DOC is asking anyone who encounters the pots to leave them in place.
“We wanted to let the community and boaties know we’d be on commercial vessels inside marine protected areas,” says Emma Kearney, a marine scientist at DOC.
“If you see any lobster pots inside those areas, they’re there for research purposes, so please leave them as they are.”
On board alongside DOC staff will be representatives from the University of Auckland, local iwi, and the commercial fishers who own the two vessels.
Each lobster caught is measured, its location recorded, and it is tagged to help track movement between protected and fished areas. A small tissue clip is taken for genetics work at the University of Auckland. Then it goes back in the water alive.
“We’ll be recording size and location details, then tagging them to help understand how they move between marine protections and surrounding fishing areas,” Kearney says. “We’ll also take a small clip of tissue for the university to undertake genetics studies on the species, furthering our understanding of the population.”
Lobster potting is a standard commercial fishing method, which means the research data can be compared directly against existing fisheries records and against catch rates outside the protected areas.
The surveys are part of a broader DOC programme to build an environmental snapshot of the marine environment in the first year of the Gulf’s new marine protections. That programme includes both traditional marine reserves and the twelve new high-protection areas established across the inner Gulf, which ban recreational and commercial fishing and allow active restoration work, such as shellfish reseeding and reef restoration.
“It’s exciting to be working in both traditional marine reserves and the new high protection areas because over time we’ll learn about the outcomes of this new tool, which combines protection and marine restoration,” Kearney says. “It’s a new frontier in conservation beneath the waves.”
A reminder that the inner Hauraki Gulf is closed to rock lobster fishing. Check the rules before you head out at mpi.govt.nz/rules.
More information on Hauraki Gulf marine protected areas is at doc.govt.nz.
