Delaying the assessment of the management tool used to set limits for sea lion deaths in the Auckland Islands squid fishery for five years is ''inherently risky'' given the ''uncertainties around its predictions'', an specialist review panel has found.
The message finally seems to be getting through to people fishing at a former Otago problem spot, a fisheries officer says.
The man who has been harvesting seaweed from a south coast beach is being investigated by three authorities.
The Otago rock lobster industry has crawled through one of its most difficult seasons in recent memory.
A compromise has been reached allowing the Moeraki mataitai to be approved, albeit with different boundaries, 10 years after it was first proposed, but commercial paua divers still have concerns about its potential impact on the Otago paua fishery.
Hoki fishing is responsible for more fur seal deaths than any other trawl fishery, despite its international certification as a sustainable industry, Forest and Bird says.
Major surgery could not keep David Ellison from celebrating the official opening of the East Otago Harbour taiapure.
Several businesses in Otago were among those hit by a covert Ministry of Fisheries operation aimed at catching dealers buying and selling fish illegally.
A recreational fishing survey, costing $5 million, will start this year, Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Phil Heatley says.
Penalties totalling $367,709 have been imposed on a foreign fishing company and two of its crew after they admitted "trucking" - taking fish from one quota area and misreporting that it had come from the neighbouring zone.
Fishing boats will have to tie up and crew may leave for other jobs unless the Ministry of Fisheries increases the flatfish quota, and does so quickly, those connected with the Otago fishing industry say.
Greenpeace is calling on the Government to stop companies catching orange roughy after two major international retailers stopped selling the fish over sustainability concerns.
Otago fishermen have formed a working party to write their formal response to Port Otago's plans to dump more than seven million cubic metres of sand and silt off Taiaroa Head.
The livelihoods of Otago rock lobster fisherman may be affected by the halving of this year's catch limit quota, an industry spokesman says.
South Island iwi Ngai Tahu will receive about $6 million under aquaculture settlement legislation passed by Parliament yesterday.
A commercial fisherman has been fined $4000 and had more than $20,000 in equipment seized for fishing out of season.
Poachers have been caught red handed through calls from the public to a fisheries hotline, Acting Fisheries Minister David Carter says.
The Labour Party has launched a petition against allowing commercial whaling to restart.
New Zealand's commercial fishers landed 2200 tonnes of albacore tuna last year, with most of it exported to canneries in Europe.
A two-week black market paua poaching trial never got started today after sudden guilty pleas by three men who are now facing likely sentences of home detention and community work.