New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Spatial variation and commercial fishing of New Zealand abalone (Haliotis
iris and H. australis)
PAUL E. McSHANE
STEVE F. MERCER
J. REYN NAYLOR
MAF Fisheries
Greta Point
P.O. Box 297
Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract The New Zealand abalone fishery produces about
1200 t annually, mostly from southern New Zealand. The fishery, based on
Haliotis iris, is managed over broad management areas within which
fishing intensity is spatially dispersed. The size composition of the
commercial catch depends on location within a management area but is similar
for divers fishing individual populations of
H. iris and reflects the
size composition of natural populations. For most populations, length-frequency
distributions of abalone were normally distributed: the mean shell length of
H. iris was found to vary within populations over small spatial scales
(100s m). The relative abundance of juvenile
H. iris was low in relation
to adults suggesting, at least for exposed populations, that rates of
recruitment to populations of
H. iris may be low. The relative abundance
and mean shell length of juveniles and adults of
H. australis was much
less than that of
H. iris. The scarcity of
H. australis and the
lack of separate catch quotas for the two species are factors which explain the
low to zero catch of
H. australis. The spatial variation in the size
composition of
H. iris suggests that management would be more
appropriate over spatial scales which reflect local populations rather than the
large spatial areas which are used to manage the New Zealand abalone fishery.
Keywords Haliotis iris; H. australis; abalone;
commercial fishing; distribution; abundance; size composition; juveniles
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1994: Vol. 28:
345-355
0028-8330/94/2804-0345 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand
1994
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1081K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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