Download AEBR-2017/189 - Assessment of the risk to New Zealand marine mammals from commercial fisheries

This study provides an assessment of the impact of fishing-related fatalities on the populations of 35
marine mammal (sub)species that inhabit New Zealand waters. The assessment included mortalities
caused by trawl, longline, set-net and purse-seine fisheries within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ). The risk assessment was an implementation of the Spatially Explicit Fisheries Risk Assessment
(SEFRA) method. Risk was defined as the ratio of Annual Potential Fatalities (APF; an estimate of
the number of marine mammals killed in fisheries each year) to the Population Sustainability Threshold
(PST; a measure of the population productivity). A risk index higher than one indicates that fisheries
mortalities are at a level that may prevent the population increasing to, or remaining above, half the
carrying capacity in the long term.