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Total commercial catch

How does New Zealand compare?

In 2007, New Zealand had the 15th highest fish landings out of 27 OECD countries that had data available (see international comparison section below).

Current situation

  • There were 424,693 tonnes of fish caught commercially in the 2009 fishing year. 1
  • Middle-depth fish 2 (ie, hoki, hake and ling) made up more than a quarter of this total catch, with 113,342 tonnes caught in 2009 (around 80 per cent of which was hoki).
  • Inshore finfish 2 (including barracouta, red cod, silver warehou, snapper and tarakihi) made up almost 20 per cent of the total catch at 84,687 tonnes and mackerels 2 made up around 12 per cent of the total catch at 49,948 tonnes.

Processed commercial catch by species groups, 1990 - 2009

Figure 1 Landed commercial catch by species groups, 1990–2009

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Species Group Middle depth species (hoki, hake, and ling) Inshore finfish (barracouta, red cod, silver warehou, snapper, and  tarakihi ) Deepwater trawl species (orange roughy, oreo species, rattails, and cardinal fish) Squid and octopuses Mackerels (jack mackerels and kahawai Southern blue whiting/small pelagics (southern blue whiting, pilchards, and mullets) Sharks, rays and skates Marine invertebrates (except for squid and octopuses) (scampi, oysters, and scallops) Highly migratory species (tunas, swordfish, and ray’s bream) Bottom line species (bluenose, hapuku, bass, ribaldo, and toothfish) Freshwater species (short-finned and long-finned eels) Other (miscellaneous species) Total
1990 203140 68113 53674 31821 28849 9968 9220 11671 9386 2309 1070 2168 431389
1991 237439 75447 60584 37852 43633 39046 14046 13386 10238 3810 1431 4693 541605
1992 223159 80467 67317 63482 49941 71327 12569 9920 5513 4099 1555 3884 593233
1993 203433 93390 66062 37259 67006 37185 15034 9493 5726 4894 1618 4372 545472
1994 196259 76458 66069 67942 50705 15822 16655 10660 10566 5007 1287 4378 521808
1995 211957 88861 62659 87017 52631 23822 16493 10867 9725 6218 1500 6312 578062
1996 234698 95836 66366 54539 48003 13089 20129 11657 12042 6287 1498 3998

568142
1997 269548 102233 59096

63796

46988

17672

 20446 13366 11944 6602 1340 4961 617992
1998 301768 98633 51941

43197

46230

31337

 24103 24768 16534 5828 1348 6624 652311
1999 270070 92480 56136 27401 52802 46758 25277 26534 12610 5931 1275 6211 623485
2000 275167 84556 54753 21000 31704 30374 23196 26807 19030 6241 1173 5136 579137
2001 258964 85323 48953 35608 41964 27496 26617 25513 14065 6348 1102 4805 576758
2002 220714 83898 52397 49018 46975 42274 29829 23817 13472 7092 1035 7450 577971
2003 210035 95015 47978 43923 49198 30789 28991 16811 16351 7108 861 6803 553863
2004 172565 94425 42160 84331 47833 30848 25178 16523 20800 7316 754 7576 550309
2005 139004 94402 45947 86411 63003 32811 22808 16467 16253 7997 728 6540 532371
2006 126261 94210 45281 73136 55223 18686 22076 16881 12005 7172 788 7238 478957
2007 131332 97894 41898 70095 50962 38216 22125 15842 17914 7278 752 5631 499939
2008 112513 85762 39279 56270 59584 32617 21055 15725 16635 6923 670 6112 453145
2009 113342 84687 36887 46559 49948 39555 21169 10231 8565 6973 533 6243 424693

Notes: (1) Catch data is reported by ‘fishing year’, which runs from 1 October to 30 September. A fishing year takes its name from the second of the two calendar years because this is the year in which most of the fishing year lies. (2) Please refer to species groupings for more detailed information.

Data source: Ministry of Fisheries.

Fisheries management

Fisheries in New Zealand waters are a common pool resource. The Government’s role is to ensure utilisation and sustainability are appropriately balanced, while also balancing the competing demands of user groups.

Commercial fisheries in New Zealand are managed under the quota management system (QMS) where individual transferrable quota for fish stocks is owned by private interests. The quantity of fish that can be taken by commercial fishers, for each stock in a fishing year, is the total allowable commercial catch (TACC).

Trend 3

  • The commercial fish catch increased from 431,389 tonnes in 1990 to a peak of 652,311 tonnes in 1998 (see figure above). Since then, the annual total catch has generally decreased, to 424,693 tonnes in 2009.
  • Changes in commercial catches may result from variation in the abundance and location of fish, environmental conditions, and economic factors affecting the fishing industry such as fuel, labour, and equipment costs, and domestic and international market demands.
  • The trends in commercial catch are driven mainly by the catch of middle-depth fish (primarily hoki). Middle-depth fish catch accounted for about 40 per cent of total catch in the early to mid-1990s and, on average, over 45 per cent in the peak years between 1998 and 2000. In more recent years, however, middle-depth fish accounted for about 25 per cent of total catch. The above figure shows that the annual commercial catch of middle depth species in 2009 (113,342 tonnes) was almost half that in 1990 (203,140 tonnes).
  • Inshore finfish catches remained relatively constant between 1997 and 2009, whereas catches for deepwater species decreased, from a peak of 67,317 tonnes in 1992 to 36,887 tonnes in 2009. The annual squid catch fluctuated between about 31,821 tonnes and 46,559 tonnes over the 20 years, with peaks in 1995, 2004, and 2005.

This information has come from the latest fish stocks report card.

What can you do?

  • Poaching is theft. Stop people stealing our natural resources – call 0800 4 POACHER if you see someone taking over the daily limit or undersized fish, or anything you think is suspicious.
  • Take unwanted fishing gear home with you and dispose of it in your rubbish bin. Over 700,000 seabirds are killed each year by abandoned fishing gear.

International comparison

In 2007, New Zealand had the 15th highest fish landings out of 27 OECD countries that had data available (see figure below).

Fish landings in domestic and foreign ports, 2007

Figure 6 Fish landings in domestic and foreign ports, 2007

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Country Fish landings (‘000 tonnes)
Slovenia 1
Israel 3
Belgium 22
Greece 95
Finland 117
Poland 133
Australia 186
Portugal 196
Ireland 219
Sweden 246
Germany 262
Italy 267
New Zealand 427
Netherlands 464
France 474
Turkey 589
Denmark 645
Spain 752
United Kingdom 888
Canada 983
Mexico 1312
Iceland 1399
Korea 1550
Norway 2520
Chile 4133
United States 4188
Japan 4417

Data source: OECD. 2010. OECD Factbook 2010. Paris: OECD.

Notes:

(1) A fishing year runs from 1 October to 30 September. A fishing year takes its name from the second of the two calendar years in which most of the fishing year lies.

(2)Please refer to species groupings for more detailed information.

(3)Trends in commercial catch are not necessarily indicative of fish stock abundance.

Return to fish stocks under the QMS page

Last updated: November 2010