Assessment of the risk of commercial fisheries to New Zealand seabirds, 2006-07 to 2016-17

Seabirds are incidentally caught in commercial fisheries in New Zealand waters, with a range of species featuring in bycatch records across different fisheries. The potential impact of these incidental captures on seabird populations breeding within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone has been regularly
assessed through a systematic risk assessment framework, which allowed the identification of species and fisheries associated with the highest risk and the monitoring of changes in risk status over time. The risk assessments are based on the Spatially Explicit Fisheries Risk Assessment (SEFRA) framework, which
allows risk to be calculated for all species and fisheries of interest, even when bycatch and population
data are incomplete or uncertain. The present analysis provides an updated assessment of the risk of
commercial fisheries in New Zealand for 71 seabird taxa breeding in the New Zealand region, including
data to the 2016–17 fishing year.