PROJECT NUMBER
•
2005-023
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Agriculture Victoria
122,526 results
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2005-016
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries (QLD)
SPECIES
Development of Field Implemented Fillet Identification (FIFI) for coral reef fin fish
Project number:
2005-011
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$200,598.50
Principal Investigator:
Jane Oakey
Organisation:
Department of Primary Industries (QLD)
Project start/end date:
29 Jun 2005
-
30 Sep 2008
Contact:
FRDC
1. The need to manage the growth of the coral reef fishery to prevent depletion of this natural resource, and its associated ecosystems, has been clearly identified and legislation has been put in place under the Fisheries (Coral Reef Fin Fish) Management Plan 2003. To ensure compliance, Officers must be able to identify the fish they are inspecting, and currently there is no suitable test to identify fish fillets in the field and to confirm that commercial and recreational fishers comply with quota and possession limits, thus assuring sustainability of the resource.
2. Recent research by the PI has shown that DNA sequencing can identify coral reef finfish to a species level even when visible markers have been removed (such as through filleting). However, DNA sequencing is complex and expensive making it unsuitable for screening large numbers of fillets. Thus, there is a need for a tool that can identify fish species, be rapidly and easily used at sea, and is sufficiently discriminatory to differentiate between closely related coral reef fin fish. Public awareness of such a tool will deter non-compliance.
3. Development of this test is supported by several State and Commonwealth R&D plans and priorities that result from identified needs. The following plans identify sustainability of natural resources:
a. Queensland Fishing Industry Research Advisory Committee priorities include identification of performance indicators and development of tools (priority 1.7), which is the aim of the project. This proposal is supported by QFIRAC.
b. FRDC: legislative, institutional, compliance and policy arrangements; and fisheries and ecosystem management methods (Strategies 7 and 10, Natural Resources Sustainability) identifies the need for compliance tools such as that proposed.
c. Queensland State: Development of Enabling Technologies (Priority 1) includes biotechnology as used in this project proposal. Sustainable Queensland Coastlines and Great Barrier Reef (Priority 2) has been discussed above; and Tropical Futures (Priority 5) addresses issues, problems and opportunities in tropical regions, and this proposal promotes regional science to answer a regional need.
d. Fisheries research priorities for all Australian States include sustainability of natural resources and a rapid field-test for specific DNA sequences could apply to particular species of interest from any location.
1. To develop a rapid, simple and inexpensive method to indicate the presence of target mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from restricted and protected coral reef fin fish species.
2. To optimise and validate this method as a field test to detect the presence of, and to identify, restricted species of coral reef fin fish species from samples that have had phenotypic markers removed (such as fillets), and to confirm that cross-reactivity with unrestricted species will not occur. This will form the basis of FIFI (Field Implemented Fillet Identification), and subsequently be used by fisheries officers as a compliance tool for the Fisheries (Coral Reef Fin Fish) Management Plan.
3. To workshop and demonstrate FIFI in order to train and familiarise fisheries officers and any other interested parties in its use (extension).
4. To use media coverage to create public awareness of FIFI and deter non-compliance with fishing regulations.
5. To investigate the most appropriate scientific communication of FIFI technology based upon the optimum procedures used (from objectives 1 and 2) and any current patents held on those procedures. This may include either publication or commercialisation.
Final report
Author:
Dr Jane Oakey
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2005-010
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
James Cook University (JCU)
SPECIES
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2005-008
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Agriculture Victoria
SPECIES
The influence of environmental factors on recruitment and availability of fish stocks in southeast Australia
Project number:
2005-006
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$347,505.00
Principal Investigator:
Ian Knuckey
Organisation:
Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
Project start/end date:
6 Sep 2005
-
28 Feb 2009
Contact:
FRDC
The dynamics of fish stocks are significantly influenced by environmental and oceanographic factors. Although this is now recognised by industry and scientists alike, there is increasing frustration with the application of single species stock assessments or CPUE analyses that do not incorporate any information about the broader environmental/oceanographic factors. There are clear examples in the SESSF of cyclic patterns in recruitment and availability and indications of regime shifts, but there has been little support for compiling these data and incorporating them in a quantitative manner into stock assessments of fisheries in SE Australia. Much of this information about the influence of environmental factors is in the heads of experienced fishermen but needs to be formally (and quantitatively) incorporated into the assessments/analyses that underpin the TAC setting process for the fishery. Clearly, a better understanding of the influences of the environment will improve several aspects of the assessment and management processes. Including environmental factors in the standardization of catch rates has the potential to remove a significant source of uncertainty that can lead to misleading population estimates. There is also a need to include environmental factors directly into the assessment, for example through models of environmentally-driven cycles (eg blue grenadier). As outputs from the assessments flow directly into management decisions, for example through the TAC setting process and appropriately chosen harvest strategies, the project will enhance management’s confidence in the decisions being made, and also improve industry’s faith in the assessment/management process. Industry members are currently getting disillusioned with assessments that do not take environmental factors of fishery dynamics into account to the point where they are beginning to walk out on the fishery assessment process. This only further decreases the relevance and applicability of these assessments. This trend can be turned around if industry is listened to and empowered with the capability of bringing quantitative information into the stock assessment process (rather than anecdotal).
From information passed down through generations and decades of their own experiences, good fishermen have an informed understanding of the influence of environmental and oceanographic on fish stocks. Industry and scientists would both appreciate the means to incorporate environmental/oceanographic data into the stock assessment process in a formal manner. Subsequent benefits to the management process will ensue through the provision of better developed harvest strategies that can explicitly account for environmental fluctuations in key fishery parameters (eg projections of cyclic patterns in availability and recruitment), and an exploration of flexible multi-year TACs. Also, short-term predictions of environmentally driven changes in biomass (either increases or decreases), that have led to unnecessary changes to TACs, may be offset by an increased ability to forecast biomass changes and thereby enable management to respond in a manner that does not unduly impact the stock or the financial stability of the industry. This project provides the datasets and models that would enable this to occur.
Most importantly, this project is the first step in the process of getting fishers to collect the information that is so needed to manage the fish stocks. With the burden of increasing costs of fishery monitoring, data collection and analysis, the fishing industry is looking towards cost effective alternatives to this work always being undertaken by government agencies. Industry members are already purchasing software that will enable them to collect and analyse much of this information themselves. There is a need for this to be a coordinated process which will ultimately empower the industry to bring valuable interpretations and analysis into the stock assessment process in a quantitative manner. Using the resources from this project to begin with, we aim to assess whether industry can be self-sufficient in collecting these data by the end of this three year project.
1. Hold a workshop with major stakeholder groups to develop hypotheses about the major environmental drivers and their potential influence of gross fishery characteristics (catch composition, seasonal variations, recruitment pulses etc)
2. Model the influence of environmental/oceanographic conditions on fishery recruitment success and availability
3. Examine the efficacy of industry-based environmental data collection capabilities
4. Trial environmental data collection instrumentation on strategic fishing vessels across the SESSF and methods of incorporating this information into assessments
Final report
Determination of effective longline effort in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery
Project number:
2005-004
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$128,607.00
Principal Investigator:
Robert A. Campbell
Organisation:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date:
29 Jun 2005
-
31 Dec 2008
Contact:
FRDC
The effective and sustainable management of the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery (ETBF) is dependent on having an understanding of the impact of the ETBF on the fish resources which occur off eastern Australia. While changes in catch-per-unit-effort are widely used as an indicator of changes in resource availability, changes in operational practices and prevailing oceanographic conditions makes it difficult to determine the effective effort directed at particular species. This in turn makes it difficult to interpret changes in catch rates as changes in resource availability. However, as the ETBF has expanded, catch rates in some of the earlier regions to be fished have declined significantly leading to increased concern as to whether recent catch levels can be sustained.
For the ETBF, the following four issues highlight the need to better understand the relationship between catch rates and resource availability. By addressing these needs, this research directly addresses aspects of research priorities 1 and 2 identified for the ETBF in 2004.
1. The need to develop indicators of resource availability off eastern Australia
Current stock assessments for the principal tuna species in the WCPO still remain uncertain, and uncertainties in the spatial distribution of both the resource and recruitment patterns makes it difficult to infer from these assessments the status of the resource in a limited region such as off eastern Australia. In order to provide an understanding of the impact of the ETBF on the fish resources which occur off eastern Australia, the Fisheries Assessment Group for the ETBF has identified as a high priority the need to develop a number of performance indicators for monitoring the status of these resources. These indicators are to be based on the monitoring of temporal and spatial changes in catch rates (and sizes) which, in turn, will require gaining a better understanding of the factors, apart from resource availability, which influence catch rates.
2. The need to improve the data and methods used to standardise catch rates.
To improve our understanding of those factors which influence catch rates, information needs to be collected on a range of operational factors which influence the effectiveness of longline fishery gears. These factors include targeting and gear setting practices, resulting hook depths, depth preferences of the target species, time-of-capture, and prevailing oceanographic conditions. Furthermore, an understanding of these relationships is crucial if one is to make use of the new habitat-based models which have been developed to standardise longline catch rates.
3. The need to improve indicators of stock status in the WCPO.
Improvements in regional stock assessments are needed to assist managers of the ETBF gain a better understanding of the status of the stocks on which the ETBF depends. While several factors contribute to the uncertainties in the WCPO assessments, improvements in the construction of indices of stock biomass based on the analysis of longline catch-per-unit-effort have been identified by the Standing Committee on Tuna and Billfish as a critical factor and a high priority for further research (SCTB 2003). The availability of accurate indices of stock biomass will also a critical input for the development of assessment models for those pelagic resources (such as swordfish and striped marlin) which have a more regional SW Pacific stock structure.
4. The need to avoid the incidental capture of important bycatch species.
Information on the fishing characteristics of longline gears in the ETBF is also needed to help address another major concern to the management of the ETBF - the real or perceived threat that longlining has to threatened and endangered species. An improved understanding of the factors influencing the configuration of longline fishing gears and resulting catch rates will help identify fishing practices which may be used to avoid the incidental capture of important bycatch species, such as turtles and other threatened and endangered species (Polavina et al 2003). This will be similar to the observer-based research carried out in the mid-1990s in the Coral Sea to help identify methods to avoid the capture of black marlin. This work will also assist in the identification of fishing practices which selectively avoid the capture of individual target and by-product species (eg. swordfish, sharks) if required for management purposes.
Finally, by gaining a better understanding of the data requirements needed to develop performance indicators for monitoring resource status in the ETBF, this project will provide guidance to AFMA on the types of data which will be needed to be collected for management purposes. This will also assist in deciding which data is best sourced from logbooks and which may be best provided through an observer program.
1. Determination of the depths attained by longline fishing gears deployed in the ETBF and investigation of the relationships between targeting and gear setting practices and hook depths and longline shape characteristics
2. Investigation of the relationships between hook depth and the capture depths and associated water temperatures for the principal species caught by longline gears in the ETBF
3. Investigation of the time-of-capture of the principal catch species caught by longline gears in the ETBF
4. Investigation, and where necessary refinement, of the technical assumptions used in the habitat based models being used to standardise longline catch per unit effort in the WCPO
5. Development of habitat based method for standardizing longline catch rates and application to the ETBF
6. Investigation of the relationships between longline fishing practices, gear configurations, hook-types and the incidental capture of bycatch and byproduct species in the ETBF
7. Determination of the adequacy of information currently recorded in vessel logbooks for standardisation of longline CPUE and, where necessary, recommended changes
Final report
Adaptive frameworks for Australian fishery observer programs: effort allocation and tools for decision support
Project number:
2005-002
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$227,827.00
Principal Investigator:
Jeffrey Dambacher
Organisation:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date:
29 Jun 2005
-
30 Aug 2008
Contact:
FRDC
Although each year millions of dollars are spent observing bycatch and assessing bycatch mitigation across Australian Commonwealth fisheries, there currently is no comprehensive analysis of observer data. For example, AFMA’s observer section compiles reports on seabird Threat Abatement Programs (TAP) containing summaries for numbers of birds caught, effort, and catch rates. While these statistics satisfy TAP reporting requirements, they nonetheless lack analysis of variation in catch rates over time, space, and among vessels. Hence understanding of why mitigation methods may or may not be working is hampered, ultimately to the detriment of industry. Also, recent analyses of observer data [1] have demonstrated a potential for predictive models based on fishing methods and oceanographic conditions to support management strategies minimising discard mortality and bycatch. Unfortunately such analyses are beyond the current scope of AFMA’s observer section, and a need exists for managers to receive and respond to information coming from observer programs in a timely manner. The need for streamlined analyses of observer data is not limited to bycatch issues alone, but extends to various management and research areas including ecological risk assessments for judging ecological sustainability, and stock assessments requiring observer data to develop calibrated analyses of standardized catch per unit effort.
A second major driver for the proposed work lies in the observation that while most fishery stakeholders agree on the need for observer programs, disagreement exists on appropriate levels of observer effort. NGO’s cite literature from within the NGO community [2] that coverage levels exceeding 50% are required to rigorously estimate bycatch, while the fishing industry argues that the capacity to pay limits what is possible. Clearly this isn’t a case of “one-size-fits-all”, and decisions on levels of observer coverage need to be framed against an array of what will sometimes be competing management objectives. We contend that this debate will benefit from a more rigorous statistical approach. Ultimately, managers require an adaptive approach that is both practical and transparent to the trade-offs involved.
This proposal addresses the needs outlined above by developing analytical and adaptive frameworks to infuse analyses of AFMA observer data into areas critical to Australian fisheries management, and supporting effective apportionment of observer effort.
---References---
[1] Dambacher, J.M., T.A. Patterson, J.S. Gunn, and T.I. Carter. 2003. Southern bluefin tuna by-catch in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery. Confidential Final Report-Project No. R00/1126. CSIRO Marine Research. Hobart.
[2] Babcock, E.A., E.K. Pikitch, and C.G. Hudson. 2003. How much observer coverage is enough to adequately estimate bycatch? Oceana, Washington DC, http://www.oceana.org/uploads/BabcockPikitchGray2003FinalReport.pdf.
1. Develop software tools and analytical framework to support AFMA management decisions and research projects with streamlined and timely analyses of fishery observer data.
2. Develop statistical and organizational frameworks to assist in the allocation of observer effort within Australian fisheries.
3. Develop guidelines for sufficient and appropriate methods of analysis and reporting of AFMA observer data.
4. Develop an understanding of the relationship between catch rates of selected bycatch species, fishing gear and practices, and surrounding oceanographic environments.
5. Develop performance indicators and predictive models to support management of bycatch and discard mortality for sensitive or endangered species.
6. Assess quality of AFMA logbook data for bycatch species.
Final report
Author:
Christian H. Moeseneder
Jeffrey M. Dambacher
Robert A. Campbell
Fiona M. Giannini
Emma K. Lawrence
Alistair J. Hobday
Jock W. Young
Developing an Australian seafood strategy for export growth - stage 1
Project number:
2004-413
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure:
$10,000.00
Principal Investigator:
Ted Loveday
Organisation:
Seafood Services Australia Ltd
Project start/end date:
29 Jun 2004
-
7 Apr 2006
Contact:
FRDC
The Australian seafood industry is a significant contributor to the Australian economy, with exports in excess of $2 billion in 2001-02 and a multiplier effect estimated to be around $10 billion.
Seafood products from Australia are highly regarded on the international market, with many suppliers having a long history of consistent high quality supply, with some seafood varieties being unique to Australian waters. This presents many potential opportunities for export growth for the Australian seafood sector.
At this point there is no strategic process to enable opportunities to be identified and capitalised upon, thereby allowing Australia to realise the benefits of maximising the potential growth.
This project will establish a process that provides a sound basis for targeting investment and achieving sustainable export growth.
1. To develop a national strategy to achieve significant export growth for Australian seafood by agreeing on national export growth targets, identifying priority opportunities to achieve these export growth targets, including feasibility assessments, identifying impediments to export growthand establishing on going processes to take advantage of opportunities for maximising export growth and to address identified impediments.
Final report
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2004-412
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED
ORGANISATION:
Southern Rocklobster Ltd (SRL)
SPECIES
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