Snapper tagging project begins off Kawau

A commercial trawler and two longline fishing ships aim to catch 2000 snapper in the marine reserve around Kawau Island starting today - but they will be doing it legally.

The ships have been chartered by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) to test how many snapper die when they are tagged with the latest electronic tracers. Project manager Jeremy McKenzie said 30 per cent died when tagged with earlier non-electronic tags.

The tagged fish will be held in a 25m-wide circular cage in the sea near Kawau Island for two weeks to see how many of them die.

The experiment will be used to assess results from a large-scale tagging programme to estimate snapper stocks off the west coast.