This document describes the 2021 stock assessment of red rock lobsters in CRA 7 and CRA 8. The model was fitted to CPUE, length frequency, sex ratio, and tag data. Two-regions were assumed (1 = CRA 7 and the four Southland CRA 8 statistical areas, 2 = the three Fiordland CRA 8 areas). In most years since 2010, recruitment in Fiordland was above average, and slightly below average in Southland. The spawning biomass increased above the soft limit in both regions from 2000 to present.

This report documents the data used in the 2021 assessment of red rock lobsters for CRA 7 (Otago) and CRA 8 (Stewart Island/Fiordland). The data sets described include catch estimates, along with relevant sources, from the commercial, recreational, customary, and illegal components of the fishery, standardised catch per unit of effort (CPUE), size data (LFs) from observer catch sampling and voluntary commercial fishery logbooks, and tag-recapture data. Puerulus settlement indices were not used.

New wildlife tracking devices have demonstrated promising results in seabird monitoring and fisheries management. Xargos and Xsputnik loggers were deployed on Antipodean albatrosses in 2019, making use of X band navigation radar detection and real time GPS technology to study seabird movement and foraging patterns at sea, allowing monitoring of in situ interactions with fishing vessels and analysis of which fisheries pose the highest risk of mortality amongst foraging seabirds.

Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service Technical Paper No: 2022/06