The rock lobster fishery is one of New Zealand’s most valuable fisheries.
Understanding larval settlement processes can greatly assist the management of this fishery because they may explain changes in recruitment to the fishery (i.e., reaching legal size), which takes between four and eleven years. This report aims to determine trends in puerulus settlement at selected key sites around New Zealand.
Annual patterns of red rock lobster settlement are described for North Island and South Island coastal areas, based on monthly monitoring of puerulus (the post-larval stage of red rock lobster) settlement collectors.
The monitoring data for 2022–23 are described in this report and used to provide indices of puerulus settlement for 2022–23, and thus extend the time series used to identify annual trends of settlement (since 1979).
Puerulus settlement during the 2022–23 fishing year was above the long-term mean at Gisborne, Castlepoint, and Halfmoon Bay and below the long-term mean at Napier, Kaikōura, Moeraki, and Jackson Bay.
In New Zealand there are significant correlations between the level of settlement and fishery catch per unit effort for most fishery areas.
FAR 2024/04 Red rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) settlement indices for the 2022–23 fishing year
Type
Report - Fisheries Assessment Report (FAR)
Published
Last updated
ISBN Online
978-1-991120-66-3
ISSN Online
1179-5352