The coral was caught late last year by a bottom trawler operating in the Chatham Rise – a deep-water fishing ground 1400km east of Christchurch where species including hoki, ling and orange roughy are targeted.
Fisheries New Zealand’s science and information director Simon Lawrence said the last time such a large amount of coral was captured in a single trawling event was in 2008 – almost two decades ago.
“Incidents involving bycatch of this amount of coral are very rare,” he said.
Lawrence emphasised that the fishers involved did not break the law as the catch was reported as is required.
He said the net contained both dead and living coral, as well as an unknown quantity of mud from the seafloor.
“Photos of the capture were analysed by experts at the Department of Conservation, who noted that the capture appeared to be a mix of long-dead (black coral fragments) and more recently dead coral, with whiter patches potentially including live areas,” he said.
We’re not proud whenever we accidentally capture species we are not targeting.
Seafood NZ CEO Lisa Futschek
The coral capture follows the global release of the documentary Ocean by broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, much of which laments the damage caused by certain fishing methods like bottom trawling.
Seafood New Zealand (SNZ), the group representing the commercial fishing sector, published a press statement in response to Attenborough’s movie last month saying New Zealand’s commercial fishing sector was an “inspiration to the rest of the world”.
Futschek said in the statement while the industry “can’t claim to be perfect”, some of the concerns Attenborough raised have already been addressed.
“In fact, we hoped that the story of how commercial fishing is done in New Zealand could be the sort of good news a global treasure like Sir David needs on his 99th birthday,” Futschek said.
The statement emphasised New Zealand’s “strictly enforced” quota management system, that bottom trawling is banned in 30% of the country’s waters and noted inventions like weighted hooks and the use of innovative trawl nets which don’t crush fish when caught.
Futschek said “we are not proud” of captures of species that are not being targeted by fishers, but stood by her comments telling the Herald the country’s commercial fishing sector had an impressive track record overall.
“There is so much for us to be proud of. We have achieved, for example, led by industry, 30% protection of our oceans [from bottom trawling]. We’ve already got there through our series of benthic protection areas and closed seamount areas,” she said.
She said she’d welcome a visit from Attenborough.
“We would love to host Sir David Attenborough in New Zealand and show him how we do it here”
Sir David would be ‘mortified’
Details of the massive coral catch have emerged as world leaders gather for the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) in France – a meeting focused on accelerating efforts to protect the ocean.
Karli Thomas from the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition, who’s in France for the meeting, said she didn’t believe Attenborough would see New Zealand as a shining example of fishing sustainability.
“I think it’s absolutely nonsense,” she told the Herald.
Prince William interviewed Attenborough about his film Ocean before the UNOC, and in a video segment released Saturday Sir David emphasised his concerns about bottom contact fishing.
“What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful,” Attenborough said.
“If you did anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms”
Thomas believed Attenborough would be “mortified” by images of a fishing net bulging with coral.
We’re seeing footage of NZ bottom trawling which is worse than David Attenborough’s nightmares
Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition spokeswoman Karli Thomas
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is at the meeting representing New Zealand and said on X he’d caught up with other political leaders, including the UK’s Environment Secretary Steve Reed who announced ahead of the UNOC an extension of a bottom trawling ban across English waters.
Peters announced in June last year New Zealand was committing US$10m to the Global Fund for Coral Reefs – money to support conservation initiatives until 2030.
Thomas said she’d like to see more action from New Zealand.
“We’d love to see New Zealand come here [to the UNOC] and announce that it was going to do better for our seamounts and for the corals that we find in New Zealand waters. That would be announcement to be proud of. Instead, we’re seeing footage of New Zealand bottom trawling which is worse than David Attenborough’s nightmares,” she told the Herald.
She said if such a capture had occurred outside New Zealand’s territorial waters, international rules would have led to a suspension of all fishing in the area.
For example, last year the Herald revealed a New Zealand bottom trawler caught 37kgs of coral in the Lord Howe Rise which led to the closure of a section of fishing ground until at least next year.
“We’re actually in this situation where our own regulations are weaker than those that were agreed by consensus in an international forum,” she said.
Commercial fishers in New Zealand are required to report captures of protected species like seabirds, marine turtles, dolphins and many corals, which is then recorded as fishing “bycatch”.
Thomas questioned whether it should be deemed acceptable to bring up such a significant amount of a protected species like stony coral.
“If this is legal, we need to change the law,” she said.
Trawling on ‘sandy, muddy seafloors?’
The commercial fishing sector has long argued that bottom trawling happens on featureless parts of the seafloor, and that fishing boats return to the same areas.
The SNZ website has video showing a trawl net gliding across a flat muddy seafloor which is titled “what does bottom trawling really look like?”
However, there are plenty of examples where trawling occurs on areas which can’t be deemed featureless, muddy seafloor.
The latest Fisheries NZ data shows between January and March this year 364.14kgs of coral was caught by trawl vessels.
A 2024 report from the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) analysed different types of coral caught between July 2022 and June 2023.
The NIWA report was compiled to help observers better identify different types of coral species if they were pulled in during bottom trawling.
The report said experts analysed 2854 photos of coral taken on vessels and found 2595 of the images were of a protected coral species.
The biggest number of protected corals examined were caught in fisheries management area four – the same fishing location where the recent six-tonne coral catch was landed at the Chatham Rise.
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald‘s video team in July 2024.