May 11, 2004

New Zealand Likely To Cut Hoki Fish Catch By Up To 44%

The amount of hoki fish that commercial fishing companies are allowed to catch from New Zealand waters could be cut by up to 44% from October, the Ministry of Fisheries said Tuesday.

Hoki is one of New Zealand's biggest fish exports with annual export sales of over NZ$300 million.

According to Jim Cornelius, a Ministry of Fisheries official in charge of deep sea fisheries, a recommendation on the size of the cut would be made to Minister of Fisheries Pete Hodgson by late August. The change would be implemented by October 1, which is the start of the fishing year.

The total allowable commercial catch from the hoki fishery is currently 180,000 metric tons a year. Cornelius said this would be cut to between 100,000 metric tons and 140,000 metric tons to ensure the long-term survival of the fishery.

The total allowable commercial catch has been cut by about 28% over the past five years, because not enough juvenile fish are entering the fishery to maintain the population.

Scientists attribute the lack of juveniles - called low recruitment by fish experts - to environmental factors, rather than overfishing.

Thus the fishing industry, the government, independent scientists and environmental groups are presently preoccupied with seeking the cause of the problem.

"We are working on two different scenarios - a return to normal recruitment, normal being what one might anticipate every four or five years, (which is) seeing a good recruitment class, versus a continuation of this poor recruitment we have seen for seven going on eight years," said Cornelius.