Under the sea activity
New Zealand Blue Cod
Age: up to 18 years, legal size at 7-12 years.
Size: up to 60cm, legal size around 33cm.
Colour: adults are brown, grey and green.
Food: mainly small fish and crabs.
Habitat: coastline around New Zealand to a depth of up to 150 metres.
2003 catch: 2,451 tonnes.
Did you know? Blue cod breed at different ages depending on where they live. Northland blue cod begin to breed at 2 years, Marlborough Sounds blue cod at 3-6 years and Southland blue cod at 4-5 years.
|
Activity
Study the table above.
- How much were blue cod exports valued at in 1991?
- How much were blue cod exports valued at in 2004?
- What has happened to blue cod exports over time?
- Why do you think this might be? Clues: It could be that stocks were getting low so the quotas were lowered. The fishers may not have been allowed to catch as many fish. Perhaps the price for blue cod just dropped.
- Draw a line graph using information from the table. You may want to round the numbers to the nearest ten thousand. The 2004 number would become 360,000 and the 2003 number would be 340,000. That makes your graph easier. If you have Excel, you can download the Kaimoana excel file and draw your graph on the computer.
Related links
Kaimoana Fact Sheet has interesting information about freshwater eels, lobsters, oysters, pāua, kina and blue cod.
Kaimoana excel file has export figures for rock lobster, pāua, freshwater eel and blue cod which students can graph.
Environment page contains the energy, water, forestry, fish, and minerals reports as well as the full articles on freshwater eels, rock lobsters and pāua.
Primary March 2005 StatZing! newsletter has activities related to the sea.
|
|
|