My Account
Calling all boaties and recreational fishers – a Leigh Marine Laboratory student wants your snapper guts for a new research project.
Jess Marinovich is studying the importance of snapper in controlling kina populations in local waters for her University of Auckland Masters degree and is appealing to anglers to keep and freeze the guts from any snapper they catch, so she can collect and study them.
She is looking for whole snapper gastrointestinal tracts from fish caught over shallow rocky reef areas off Leigh, Ti Point, Tawharanui, eastern Kawau, Flat Rock, Scandretts Bay, Martins Bay and south to Big Bay.
Jess will supply freezer bags and labels, or she says any zip-lock plastic bag will do. Labels need to show the length of each fish, where it was caught and by what method, though she doesn’t want any that were caught using kina berley. She also has illustrated data sheets with full instructions on how to remove a gut sample and a map, which are available from local fishing retailers.
“Kina get eaten by snapper and crayfish and if you don’t have enough of them, the kina get out of control,” she says. “Uncontrolled kina populations overgraze seaweed species and cause a shift from healthy reef habitat to kina barrens, which negatively affect the entire reef community.”
Jess is working on the project with Leigh senior lecturer Dr Nick Shears and NIWA’s Dr Darren Parsons and she will be carrying out her studies in Leigh for up to seven months.
Anyone who can help Jess should contact her on 022 089 8232 or email jmar973@aucklanduni.ac.nz
