Description
The object of the 1901 expedition was to continue the experimental survey of the coasts of New Zealand which was commenced the previous year, with the object of ascertaining what extent of trawling grounds exist in certain localities off the coast of the North Island, and to acquire information on the distribution of food-fishes, and assist the fishing industry by placing the information gained on record for the guidance of those interested. The expedition took place from February to May 1901 and covered the North Island and the northern part of the South Island.
The steam-trawler "Doto" (C. A. Nielsen, captain and trawling-master), which had been used for similar experiments in 1900, was chartered from the Nelson Fishing Company for a period of eight weeks initially, but extended to four months. The "Doto" was originally built for a steam-yacht, but was subsequently bought by Captain Nielsen, for Messrs. Petersen and Co., in Sydney and taken over to Napier, where she was fitted out and used as a trawler. She is a composite vessel of 28 tons gross register, 66 ft. in length, 12 ft. beam, draught 6 ft. 6 in., and fifteen horse power nominal. The vessel was fitted with the otter-trawl, which while quite as effective can be much more easily and quickly put down and picked up than the beam trawl, and is therefore altogether better suited for the short tows required for experimental work.
Fishing gear carried onboard included: trawl-nets—one manila-twine net, 60 ft. head-line, 45 ft. spread, and 65 ft. length; two cotton nets, 70 ft. head-line, 60 ft. spread, and 85 ft. depth; one pair of spare otter boards; one purse Seine net; one bottom dredge; hooks and lines.
Data Records
The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 122 records.
1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Ayson L F, Mackay K (2025). Experimental trawling off New Zealand, 1901. Version 1.1. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. Samplingevent dataset. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=nz_experimental_trawl_1901&v=1.1
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 5dda8525-57e5-4f42-9c61-730a7902c63f. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.
Keywords
Samplingevent; Observation
Contacts
- Originator
- Inspector of Fisheries
- Metadata Provider ●
- Point Of Contact
Geographic Coverage
Coastal waters of New Zealand
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-39.766, 173.738], North East [-35.879, 178.423] |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1901-02-09 / 1901-05-20 |
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Bibliographic Citations
- AYSON, L. F. 1901: Report on experimental trawling (1901, New Zealand). Government Printer, Wellington. 1901. 17 pp
Additional Metadata
marine, harvested by iOBIS
| Purpose | Summarising the results of the experiments, the results show that there is a wide distribution of fish round the coast, and that they exist in large numbers in certain places. The fact that they are not plentiful upon some first-class trawling-bottom is probably due to their migratory habit, which is influenced by the food-supply, and this in turn being influenced, too, by the state of the weather, tides, and currents so that before anything definite could be arrived at in regard to a permanent fish-supply from trawling; a series of experiments upon the same ground at stated intervals is a necessity. Upon this point Mr. A. Hamilton, of the Otago University, said, in his report on the 1900 expedition, referring to one species only, "In this case, as in many others, it is desirable that returns of the kinds of fish taken on the same grounds should be available for each month in the year." And Alying (1900) stated that, "As the migrations of fish are affected by temperatures, tides, and weather conditions, the extent of the fish-supply in any locality can only be ascertained correctly by having each locality fished at different seasons, so that areas mentioned in this report as showing good trawling-bottom, but with a very poor supply of fish at the time they were prospected, may at another season prove to be prolific fishing-grounds." The desirability of making further experiments is therefore obvious, and the results of those already made are not in this sense discouraging, for out of 122 hauls made at as many different places, gurnard were captured in 104 of them, snapper in ninety (sometimes in very large numbers), dog-fish in sixty three (only one or two at a time), lemon-soles in fifty, flounders in forty, soles in thirty-four, crayfish in eighteen, trevally in fifteen, tarakihi in fourteen, moki in ten, and so on. The experience of 1901 expedition was similar to that of the one conducted in 1900 in one respect—viz., that wherever the coast-line was prospected the best results were obtained in from 5 to 25 fathoms, and there appears to be no exception to this rule, although, of course, fish may be taken in small quantities outside these limits. It will be seen from the appended list of fish taken at the various stations that the most marketable kinds were always the most numerous, and that the variety was quite extensive enough to satisfy ordinary requirements. |
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| Alternative Identifiers | 9fe33bf1-7c71-441d-b241-765f2d65bef6 |
| https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=nz_experimental_trawl_1901 |