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Environment
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Environment
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Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2019-062
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT

Knowledge to improve the assessment and management of Giant Mud Crabs (Scylla serrata) in Queensland

Researchers from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) Queensland, CQUniversity (CQU) and the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) NSW Fisheries are collaborating on a Fisheries Research and Development (FRDC) co-funded research project on mud crab populations in Queensland. The...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries EcoScience Precinct
TAGS
Wild Catch
Tagging
Reproduction
Rac Qld
Rac Nsw
SPECIES
Mud Crabs
FLYER
•
PUBLISHED DATE: 01 Dec 2020
FRDC-DAF Mud crab flyer.pdf
FACT SHEET
•
PUBLISHED DATE: 01 Dec 2020
FRDC-DAF Mud crab factsheet.pdf
 
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Adoption

'If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else' - Future proofing the Australian Mud Crab Industry through improved strategic direction

Project number: 2018-177
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $101,563.00
Principal Investigator: Chris E. Calogeras
Organisation: C-AID Consultants
Project start/end date: 28 Feb 2020 - 28 Jan 2021
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Rac Wa
Rac Vic
Rac Qld
Rac Nt
Rac Nsw
SPECIES
Mud Crabs

Need

Australian mud crab fisheries are managed across four jurisdictions (WA, NT, Qld, NSW) with Industry having little cross-jurisdictional connectivity, and agencies appearing to generally operate in isolation, even though it is a national market.

Industry is undergoing significant structural and management changes. This project is critical for the Australian industry's future as it navigates these changes and seeks to optimise outcomes.

This projects genesis came when mud crab leaders from key jurisdictions caught up by phone, discussing the status of individual fisheries. It was apparent that as a product going into a national market there were many common issues to resolve. Although high-quality work is undertaken across jurisdictions; from an industry perspective R&D, monitoring and management approaches didn’t appear coordinated enough, with no national marketing plan.

It became clear that, although a $48+M/annum national market, connectivity is poor and improved outcomes can be achieved through a collaborative approach across jurisdictions. It was agreed, this approach may provide whole of industry benefits via a strategic workshop that includes licensees/quota holders, fishers, supply chain partners and agencies to increase knowledge, foster sustainable economic, environmental and social benefits.

Initial areas identified included:

• Data - Elogs, VMS, Industry science
• Research – uncoordinated nationally, modelling consistency, ecological impacts
• Succession – a plan allow entry for new people in a more structured environment, NT Indigenous involvement etc
• Quota Transition/structural changes – e.g. ownership structures, impacts, opportunities, issue, improved holding/storage to optimise product value
• Regulations – possible harmonisation/code development etc
• Biosecurity
• Product identification
• Community support/licence
• Markets and logistic opportunities
• National RD&E priorities.

There has been unanimous support across jurisdictions for this project (see attachment).

The industry doesn’t have logistical coordination at this time to coordinate this, or resources to carry it out, and would rely on FRDC funds and significant industry and agency in-kind.

Objectives

1. Share experiences and understandings to identify issues and opportunities for collaborative approaches across the industry and agencies
2. Build industry cohesion and capacity through development of a national industry plan and communication network.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9871427-8-8
Author: Dr Chris Calogeras and Dr Rik Buckworth
Final Report • 26.15 MB
2018-177-DLD.pdf

Summary

BACKGROUND
Australian mud crab fisheries extend from northern Western Australia (WA) across the Northern Territory (NT) and Queensland (Qld) through to northern New South Wales (NSW) and are managed across the four jurisdictions. The product from each jurisdiction is sold into a larger common market valued at around $50M/annum1, mainly within Australia, but also into a number of international markets.
This project’s genesis came when mud crab Industry leaders from key jurisdictions caught up by phone, discussing the status of individual jurisdiction’s fisheries. To them it became apparent that they were catching the same species, Scylla serrata and S. olivacea, (which are called mud crabs), and were all supplying the same markets, and therefore there were many common issues to resolve.
It was noted there was no formal cross-jurisdictional connectivity and it was felt that there could be improved outcomes achieved through a collaborative approach across jurisdictions. This was particularly so as, after a number of years of relative status quo in the Australian fisheries, recent years had seen significant structural and management changes that will lead/have led to operational changes in the fishery landscape. 
 
A national workshop was considered the optimal mechanism to bring Industry, and importantly, Agencies, together, to develop a common purpose. Through an approach where participants learn from each other and build relationships, Industry leaders believed that a coordinated approach to building the Industry’s future would lead to improved outcomes from an operational, economic, ecological, social and regulatory perspective. Each major Industry group and relevant Agency in Australia was contacted and provided unanimous support for this approach.
 
Like many projects that were planned for this period (2020) the impacts and uncertainty caused by COVID restrictions led to significant delays, and the project value was questioned due to the time from its genesis to its potential completion. This view was tested with Industry and Agency participants who unanimously supported the holding of a face-to-face workshop to address the project’s objectives. As such, the workshop was deferred from 2020 until it was eventually held in late 2022.
 
KEY FINDINGS
It was apparent that there is considerable opportunity to improve the future for the Australian mud crab industry on several fronts. Foremost among these is to develop a coordinated direction based on the National Plan, developed as the workshop summary (Attachment 3), to address the seven key investment areas identified. This will require communication within and between sectors.
A major recommendation was to form a Working Group which will have interim responsibility for progressing the National Plan, and to gauge the appetite to move to a more formalised arrangement for the Industry to coordinate its activities nationally. What was also clear was that a process where diverse participants learn from each other and build relationships can support a coordinated approach to building the Industry’s future from an operational, economic, social and regulatory perspective. It was noted that in the short term
a standalone Industry approach would most likely fail, and that Agency involvement in the process was a critical component of generating agreed, sustainable and positive outcomes.
In addition, it is clear that many of the key areas that require investment are not solely the remit of the Australian mud crab industry. A process to ensure that sectoral and regional needs can be amalgamated and coordinated to undertake high level and nationally focussed Research and Development (R&D) could lead to positive outcomes for many fisheries around Australia, particularly if there were a two way feedback process to share information (positive and negative) of new R&D and practices (i.e. impacts of climate, better understanding of ecological, weather and climate processes, capacity and capability, communications etc).
 
Final Report • 8.92 MB
2018-177 Workshop Summary (National Plan).pdf
Final Report • 786.33 KB
2018-177 Pre Workshop Survey.pdf

Project products

Magazine • 2023-10-26 
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Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-016
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Improving data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander marine resource use to inform decision-making

Through two national workshops, Indigenous community and agency representatives and researchers discussed issues around collecting, sharing and ownership of Indigenous fishing data. Challenges and opportunities were shared from all perspectives and expertise, knowledge and information came together...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
TAGS
Wild Catch
Survey
Recreational Fishing
Rac Cmwth
Marine Park
SPECIES
Mulloway
Black Bream
Snapper
Australian Herring
Sand Whiting
HANDBOOK
•
PUBLISHED DATE: 01 Apr 2021
2018-016-booklet.pdf
FINAL REPORT
•
PUBLISHED DATE: 01 Feb 2021
2018-016-DLD.pdf
 
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Environment

Understanding environmental and fisheries factors causing fluctuations in mud crab and blue swimmer crab fisheries in northern Australia to inform harvest strategies

Project number: 2017-047
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $161,433.33
Principal Investigator: Julie B. Robins
Organisation: Department of Agriculture and Fisheries EcoScience Precinct
Project start/end date: 9 Jul 2017 - 30 Dec 2018
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Reproduction
Rac Qld
Rac Nt
Population Dynamics
Oceanography
SPECIES
Blue Swimmer Crab
Mud Crabs

Need

The work is needed to:
(i) critically review the available literature on environmental factors influencing crab fisheries;
(ii) update analytical relationships between catch and environmental factors to include the extreme climate events experienced in the past 10 years in the GoC, and for a broader range of environmental factors than previously considered;
(iii) expand jurisdictional stock modelling to a more biologically appropriate scale and support cross-jurisdictional collaboration;
(iv) test the ability of model results to inform management of the relative importance of fishing pressure compared to environmental factors;
(v) develop reference point concepts suitable for adaptive harvest strategies for crab fisheries in northern Australia.

The project will provide information at a broad spatial scale (i.e., GoC) for crab species with different life histories and potentially different responses to environmental factors. It will compare the declining catches of mud crabs with the anecdotally reported increasing catches of blue swimmer crabs in the GoC.

Recent increases in blue swimmer crab catches in the GoC needs to be investigated to clarify which species are present and to assess their vulnerability to fishing.

The adaptation of an existing crab population model will be a case study that potentially could be applied to the Queensland east coast and other crustacean species. The current work will assist in determining whether the NT GoC mud crab fishery warrants management intervention as a consequence of environmental factors. The recent closure of blue swimmer crab fisheries in WA highlights the potential of environmental factors to seriously impact a stock to the point where fishing needs to be removed (Johnston et al 2011).

Objectives

1. Evaluate the role of a broad range of environmental drivers on catch variation in Northern Territory and Queensland crab fisheries of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
2. Explore the relative importance of fishing pressure compared to environmentally driven variability using a population model of the GoC mud crab fishery.
3. Provide advice to support the development of harvest strategies appropriate for crab fisheries in northern Australia.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-7345-0465-4
Authors: J.B. Robins A.R. Northrop M.A. Grubert R.C. Buckworth M. McLennan W.D. Sumpton and T. Saunders
Final Report • 2020-06-01 • 5.32 MB
2017-047-DLD.pdf

Summary

This project investigated relationships between environmental factors and harvests of crabs in the Gulf of Carpentaria (GoC), northern Australia. Desktop correlative analyses clearly indicated that recent fluctuations in the catches of Giant Mud Crabs in the GoC are most likely driven by environmental factors including river flow, rainfall, temperature, evaporation, and sea level changes. Declines in catches of Giant Mud Crabs between 2009 and 2016 in the NT and 2013 and 2016 in Qld coincided with a sequence of years with low rainfall, high temperatures and below average mean sea levels. The GoC may be atypical in the effects of environmental factors on populations of Giant Mud Crabs. The western and southern GoC has an east-west layout of the coastline, such that mobile organisms cannot retreat southwards to avoid heat events. The GoC has a mostly diurnal tidal regime resulting in the exposure of inter-tidal areas to the extremes of heat in summer and cold in winter. Rainfall and associated flooding in the catchments of the GoC occurs during a relatively short wet season and the reliability of annual rainfall and flooding is relatively low. We suggest that the GoC is an area where Giant Mud Crabs and their associated fisheries may be at high vulnerability to climate events, more so in the western and south-eastern regions (e.g. Roper and McArthur) than in the eastern and northern regions (e.g. Pormpuraaw and Weipa-Mapoon). During extreme climate events, environmental factors may have been relatively more important than fishing pressure.

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Environment
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