Scientific name: |
Cyttus traversi |
Other names: |
king dory |
Lookdown dory is a worst choice avoid eating seafood. An alternative choice is john dory.
An offshore, deepwater species that is widely distributed around New Zealand and caught as bycatch in trawl fisheries, particularly the hoki fishery.
Lookdown dory is caught by bottom trawling mainly as a bycatch in the hoki fishery. The concerns about this fishery include the absence of some basic biological information, the absence of a quantitative stock assessment, the unknown sustainability of recent catch levels and the absence of a management plan. The fishery also has direct impacts on seafloor communities as a result of bottom trawl fishing. As lookdown dory is a bycatch of other fisheries, mainly hoki, it is also associated with seabird, marine mammal and other non-target fish bycatch. It is estimated that 192 fur seals are captured (5 year average) in the hoki trawl fishery, one observed nationally critical New Zealand sea lion capture, about 1420 seabirds a year including cryptic species such as salvins, southern Buller’s albatross and white-capped albatross, sooty shearwater, white-chinned petrel, and cape petrel. Other bycatch species include vulnerable deepwater sharks, skates and some other elasmobranchs.
Not certified under any scheme.
Lookdown dory is exported and sold in New Zealand.
Asssessment output
No regional or fishing method difference.
| Score: | D |
| Population size: | Uncertain. Current stock size is unknown in relation to targets. |
| Annual catch limit: | Limit set at 783 tonnes since 2004. |
| Recorded catch: | Latest reported annual landings of 564 tonnes in 2014-15. |
| Stock trends: | Uncertain, but annual trawl survey on the Chatham Rise have been fairly flat through the time series, apart from 2010 and 2011 which show a decline. Sub-Antarctic trawl series declined to 2002, increased to 2009 and dropped to its lowest estimate in the time series in 2011 and 2012. |
| MSY Status: | Uncertain. |
| The Ministry of Primary Industries assessment plenary report includes: | “There are no known sustainability concerns in the lookdown dory fishery. For LDO 1: the area which accounts for the vast majority of the lookdown catch is thought to be well monitored by trawl surveys which are currently too short to suggest any pattern but CPUE indices suggest abundance has been stable since the mid-1990s. For LDO 3, trawl surveys on the Chatham Rise and sub-Antarctic indicate abundance has fluctuated in both areas.” (MPI 2016, p670-676). |
| Score: | C |
| Distribution: | Lookdown dory are caught all around New Zealand with the largest catches on the East Coast of the South Island, the Chatham Rise and the West Coast of the South Island. |
| Maximum age (years): | 38+ |
| Age at sexual maturity: | Uncertain |
| Growth rate: | Low |
| Reproductive output: | Medium |
| Age exploited: | Uncertain |
| Ability to recover: | Moderate |
| Score: | E |
| Fishing method(s): | Lookdown dory is caught mainly as a bycatch in the hoki bottom trawl fishery (over 80%) and in the barracouta, hake, ling, scampi (East Coast North Island) and silver warehou bottom trawl fisheries. |
| Habitat damage: | There is considerable damage to seafloor communities when caught by bottom trawl or midwater trawls which touch the bottom in the hoki, jack mackerel and other trawl fisheries. Impacts include habitat modification, loss of biodiversity, loss of benthic productivity and modification of important breeding and juvenile fish habitat. The trawl footprint area and contact areas vary but the Snares Shelf area, the Auckland Islands shelf, West Coast South Island, and NW and SW Chatham Rise were identified as amongst the highest frequency trawled areas in the New Zealand zone. |
| Habitat of particular significance: | Hasn’t been identified in New Zealand. |
| Bycatch: | Non-target fish species bycatch is also a problem and includes quota species hake, ling and silver warehou, which are caught in West Coast hoki fisheries. |
| Ecological effects: | The combined effects of seafloor damage and alteration, high non-target fish bycatch, plus seabird and marine mammal bycatch can have considerable ecological implications. |
| Score: | E |
| Bycatch: | Lookdown dory is primarily caught as bycatch in hoki fisheries, which also includes New Zealand fur seal, common dolphins and seabird bycatch of concern. It is estimated that 192 fur seals are captured in the hoki fishery (5-year average). Based on the recent catch spread of hoki, the main captures occur in the Cook Strait (54%), off West Coast of the South Island (24%), off east coast of the South Island and Chatham Rise (15%). The hoki fishery catches about half of the estimated fur seals caught by trawling. The sub-Antarctic and Snares Shelf hoki fishery has a low capture rate for nationally critical New Zealand sea lions of about one a year. The trawl fishery also captures about 1420 seabirds a year (5-year average): the main species are salvins, southern Buller’s albatross and white-capped albatross, sooty shearwater, white-chinned petrel, and cape petrels. Protected coral species are also reported caught in hoki tows in most quota areas. The corals caught include gorgonian, hydrocorals, black corals (Antipatharia) and stony corals (Scleractinia) – which includes reef-like, tree-like, and solitary small corals. Other bycatch species include vulnerable deepwater sharks (e.g. shovelnose dogfish, seal shark and Baxter’s dogfish). These low productivity species also include threatened basking sharks (observed at one per year, but could be higher), deepsea skates and some other elasmobranchs. |
| Score: | E |
| Management component: | Single species, but stock boundaries are uncertain and multiple stocks may exist within one quota area. There is some indication that the Chatham Rise may be a different stock to sub-Antarctic given multiple sites with spawning activity. |
| Score: | D |
| Quota Management Species: | Yes since 2004. |
| Catch limits: | Yes. |
| Management plan: | Deepwater management plan for 2010-15 is out of date, and has yet to be reviewed and replaced. Lookdown dory is a bycatch species of hoki in the current plan. There is no operational plan, and the old deepwater plan lacks key environmental standards. The National Plans of Action on Seabirds and Sharks are more relevant to bycatch issues but they are slow to be implemented. |
| Stock assessment: | No quantitative stock assessment. |
| Research: | A 10-year planned deepwater research plan has been replaced (after 5 years) with an annual planning process with unclear commitments. Lookdown dory fishery characterisation was reported in 2014. |
| Observer coverage: | Observer coverage in the hoki target fishery is 27% and 8% in middle depth trawl fisheries. The middle depth trawl is unlikely to be spatially or temporally representative of the fishing effort. |
Fisheries map
Taken from the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Plenary report for fisheries management.
References
Report from the Fishery Assessment plenary, May 2009: stock assessments and yield estimates. Part 2: John Dory to Red Cod, Science Group, Ministry for Primary Industries; Ministry for Primary Industries (2016) Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Annual Review 2015. Compiled by the Fisheries Management Science Team, Ministry for Primary Industries. 682p. The Guidebook to New Zealand Commercial Fish Species, 2007 Revised Edition, The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council Ltd. Seafood NZ, 2016. New Zealand Seafood Exports to December 2015. 133p. Annual Review Report for Deepwater Fisheries for 2014/15. MPI Technical Paper No: 2016/09. Prepared by the Ministry for Primary Industries. March 2016. 103p. S.J. Baird, D. Tracey, S. Mormede, M. Clark (2013) The distribution of protected corals in New Zealand waters. Prepared for DOC, February 2013. 96p. MFish (2010) National Fisheries Plan for Deep-Water and Middle-Depth Fisheries, 2010. 51p. Ballara, S.L. (2015) Descriptive analysis of the fishery for hake (Merluccius australis) in HAK 1, 4 and 7 from 1989-90 to 2012-13, and a catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) analysis for sub-Antarctic hake. New Zealand Fisheries Assessment Report 2015/12. 60 p. Ballara, S.L. (2014). Fishery characterisation and standardised CPUE analyses for lookdown dory, Cyttus traversi (Hutton, 1872) (Zeidae), 1989-90 to 2011-12. New Zealand Fisheries Assessment Report 2014/62.