Download AEBR 359 Inputs to the 2024 seabird risk assessment for the Southern Bluefin Tuna surface longline fishery

New Zealand has developed a spatially explicit risk assessment framework to assess the impact of fishing on protected species. It has been applied to a variety of charismatic fauna that are potentially vulnerable to the effects of fishing, including sea lions, seabirds and dolphins. In the case of seabirds, many of the species caught incidentally by New Zealand vessels are also caught outside of the Exclusive Economic Zone by high seas fisheries, particularly surface longliners fishing for tuna at high latitudes. This has led the risk assessment framework to be developed in a manner that can include global fishing effort and using global species distribution maps.

The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) is the regional fisheries management organisation responsible for managing southern bluefin tuna surface longline fisheries. New Zealand has a history of collaboration with the CCSBT to develop a risk assessment for seabirds in the southern hemisphere. The current project is the most recent update to that work. This report provides a review and update of the biological input data used for the risk assessment, as well as a brief outline of the fisheries data. The assessment results were presented at the Fifteenth Session of the Working Group on Ecologically Related Species in June 2024. Model outputs and results are provided in the CCSBT report from that meeting.