Download FAR 2025/11 Rapid update for the New Zealand rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) in CRA 2 in 2024

Pons, M.; Webber, D.N.; Rudd, M.B.; Starr, P.J.; Roberts, J. (2025). Rapid update for the New Zealand rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) in CRA 2 in 2024. New Zealand Fisheries Assessment Report 2025/11. 21 p.

The red rock lobster supports the most valuable inshore commercial fishery in New Zealand. This fishery has been managed with catch quotas in nine Quota Management Areas (QMAs), which are usually treated as independent populations or stocks.

To estimate those quotas, each population is fully assessed every five years, requiring a lot of time and effort by a team of at least five researchers working on the review of the previous stock assessments and data inputs, the processing and addition of new data, and development of a new assessment.

Every year, instead of a full assessment, a rapid update assessment is done for some of the stocks that were not assessed that year. A rapid update repeats the previous full assessment model, only updating data inputs, which significantly speeds up the required process to provide advice about stock status in the interim years between full stock assessments.

This document describes the operation of the stock assessment rapid update completed in 2024 for CRA 2 which can be used to guide management decisions.

For the beginning of the 2024–25 fishing year, red rock lobster in CRA 2 was estimated to be above sustainable levels and projected to be above reference levels in five years under current catch limits.