In recent years, awareness of seabird bycatch in inshore fisheries has grown considerably. A recent expert workshop run by the Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries, and attended by Dragonfly, discussed bycatch reduction measures for inshore trawl and bottom longline fisheries.

Having worked together on several protected species projects in the last seven years, Johanna Pierre is joining Dragonfly Science this month. She will also maintain her private consultancy, JPEC.

“I have enjoyed the projects I’ve worked on with Edward and Finlay, and am looking forward to joining forces with them”, she says.

A recent Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Report estimates the number of seabirds captured during commercial fishing in New Zealand waters between 2002–03 and 2008–09. In New Zealand, government observers are present on some vessels and record any captures of seabirds and other protected species that occur. This study estimated the total numbers of seabirds that would have been reported if observers had been present on every fishing vessel.

Finlay Thompson from Dragonfly Science travelled to Tokyo in September to attend two conferences hosted by the National Institute of Informatics and meet collaborators in the Parallel GHC project. The visit was also an opportunity to build networks in the high performance computing communities.

Dragonfly Science staff attended the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society conference, held in Oban on Stewart Island from 5-8 July. Getting to the island entailed travelling through Bluff, one of the few places where sooty shearwater pies may be bought for lunch.

Dragonfly Science estimated that around 78 sea lions were caught in New Zealand trawl fisheries in the 2008-09 fishing year. This was the lowest number of estimated captures since 2002-03.

Estimates of common dolphin bycatch in the the jack mackerel trawl fishery over a 13-year period were recently published by Dragonfly Science in a report based on data from 1995 to 2009. Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) are the most frequently observed cetacean caught in New Zealand trawl fisheries.