Neville Smith
Ministry of Fisheries
Wellington

Re: NZ Big Game Fishing Council Submission on Kingfish QMA Boundaries

NZ Big Game Fishing Council has a strong interest and involvement in yellowtail kingfish and the fishery. If kingfish is introduced to the QMS we submit that the smallest practical Quota Management Area (QMA) boundaries are used around the North Island and Northern South Island. This would mean separate QMAs for Fisheries Management Areas (FMAs) 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10 at least. FMAs 3, 5,and 6 could be combined. We have no strong views on where to include the Chatham Islands (FMA 4).

Rationale
The NZ Big Game Fishing Council has been concerned about the decline in the availability of large yellowtail kingfish for ten years or more. We were strong advocates of the 65 cm MLS and the recreational bag limit of 3 kingfish per person that apply to recreational fishers introduced in 1993. Ongoing concerns about the quality of the recreational fishery has led many of our fishing clubs to introduced there own minimum sizes of 100 cm and charter skippers in key areas limit their clients to keeping one kingfish per day or trip. Kingfish is an Icon non-commercial species in New Zealand. We have proposed non-commercial status for this species in this year's sustainability round.

Commercial fishers are not the main harvesters. Utilisation by non-extractive users is extensive in Northern New Zealand, but hard to quantify. There are however, estimates of landed catch. A series of three regional recreational harvest surveys estimated the catch in Fisheries Management Area 1 (FMA1) to be between 415 and 645 tonnes (and between 25 and 55 tonnes in FMA2 and between 50 and 80 tonnes in FMA9) (Teirney et al 1997). The 1996 national recreational harvest survey estimated the kingfish catch in FMA1 to be between 350 and 410 tonnes. (Bradford 1998) The 2000 national recreational harvest estimate for kingfish is likely to be 700 to 800 tonnes mostly from FMA1. The increase in 2000 is largely because of an under-estimate of the prevalence of recreational fishers in 1996. (Recreational Working Group Meetings 2001). Recreational harvest estimates do not include customary take. The commercial kingfish catch in FMA1 for 1995-96 was 214 tonnes and has averaged 193 tonnes a year over the last 5 years (Plenary Report 2001). By far the largest commercial and non-commercial catch of kingfish is in FMA1.

Commercial targeting is generally not allowed. A few fishers have kingfish target permits. Their catch was mostly taken by set net but in recent years reported kingfish target landings have declined to less than 1% of the commercial catch. The NZ Big Game Fishing Council is concerned that as a Quota species kingfish will be targeted by commercial fishers leading to serial depletion of the reef areas where kingfish congregate and quota will not be available to cover the by-catch of other commercial fishers. Small QMAs will not prevent this but will stop target operators moving outside their FMA.

The results of the Gamefish Tagging programme show most kingfish are caught at or near their release point, often after many years. Of 900 kingfish recaptures 76 % were made 5 nautical miles or less from where they were released and 93 % were made within 50 nautical miles. Although the kingfish population is probably one genetic stock and individuals have recorded long-distance movements there is strong evidence that kingfish harvest should be managed using the smallest practical management areas.