The New Zealand Freshwater Fish Database (NZFFD) records the occurrence of fish in fresh waters of New Zealand, including major offshore islands. We maintain the database at our Wellington campus. Data stored include the site location, the species present, their abundance and size, as well as information such as the fishing method used and a physical description of the site. The latter includes an assessment of the habitat type, substrate type, available fish cover, catchment vegetation, riparian vegetation, water widths and depths, and some water quality measures.

Data, which are recorded in the field on pre-printed forms (see a sample record), are contributed voluntarily by NIWA, fish and game councils, the Department of Conservation, regional councils, environment consultants, universities, and interested individuals. Access to the data requires registration and users are encouraged to contribute data.

NZFFD Assistant Software

NIWA provides free Assistant Software to assist contributors in entering new data and visualising data retrieved from the database.

Contributing data

Contributors send their completed forms to NIWA PO BOX 8602, Christchurch for processing and entry, or enter their data using the Freshwater Fish Database Assistant software. Data entered using the Assistant is then sent to NIWA via email or on disk for inclusion in the NZFFD.

Fish Atlas

More information about New Zealand's freshwater fish can be found in our Freshwater Fish Atlas, which includes species distribution maps produced using the Database Assistant software to display data retrieved from the NZFFD.

Predictions of native freshwater fish distributions

Predictions of the distributions of 30 native freshwater species, based on distributional data contained in the FWFDB, have been produced for all New Zealand rivers and streams. These predictions are available in ESRI shapefile format at cost of supply. This work was carried out with funding from the Terrestial and Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (TFBIS) programme, a programme funded by the Government to help to achieve the goals of the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy, and administered by the Department of Conservation.

A report describing these predictions is available here . Enquiries about the data should be directed to j.leathwick@niwa.co.nz

Contact

Please direct any queries regarding the New Zealand Freshwater Fish Database to the database administrator [fwdba@niwa.co.nz].