Vila , Vanuatu South Pacific Albacore Tagging

ii Executive Summary The first albacore tagging cruise for the EU-funded SCIFISH project was completed in early 2009. The main objective of the cruise was to tag albacore with conventional tags in an effort to obtain information on exploitation rates and movement. The cruise also provided the opportunity to conduct an experiment to validate the age of albacore derived from hard parts such as otoliths and spines. A New Zealand commercial troll fishing vessel was chartered to fish the west coast of the south island of New Zealand between January and March 2009. Overall, a total of 2766 albacore were tagged and released with 1457 of these fish also receiving an injection of oxytetracycline (OTC) for the age validation experiment. There have been no recaptures of tagged albacore to date, but based on previous albacore tagging projects, the likelihood of any recaptures within a month or two after tagging is extremely low. Most tagged albacore would be expected to be recaptured between one and four years after being released, with the majority captured by the longline fisheries. The second albacore tagging cruise for the SCIFISH project is scheduled for 2010. For this second cruise, albacore will be tagged in the subtropical front, east of New Zealand in an effort to spread the tagging effort across the south Pacific and to facilitate the mixing of tagged fish within the entire population. Albacore caught during this cruise will be tagged with conventional tags, and all tagged fish will receive an injection of OTC. A small number of pop-up satellite archival tags, which are capable of providing more detailed information on movement patterns, will be tested on some larger albacore captured during this cruise. In addition, the suitability of a genetic tagging method (genetag) will be explored by testing the effectiveness of different hook types for collecting genetic samples.