Australia’s aquatic animals are free from many diseases that occur overseas, providing us with a competitive advantage in both production and trade. Australian aquaculture has grown from an industry valued at AU$260 million in 1993 to an industry valued at AU$1.6 billion in 2020 (ABARES, 2021). This dramatic growth has been accompanied by the emergence of new diseases/infectious agents, e.g., NNV since 1989, Bonamia since 1992, OOD since 2006, OsHV since 2010, POMV since 2012, new YHV genotypes since 2013, PMMS since 2015 and WSD since 2016, all of which threaten the sustainability of major aquaculture enterprises. Consequently, the need for health research to support this expanding sector is also growing. The wild-harvest, recreational, Indigenous and ornamental sectors are also under threat; e.g., crayfish plague, Edwardsiella ictaluri in catfish, Perkinsus in oysters, WSD in crustacea and gourami iridovirus in a range of finfish species pose significant risks.

Thus, identification and prioritisation of aquatic animal health and biosecurity research and capacity building needs to be coordinated across all aquatic sectors to ensure synergy while avoiding duplication. FRDC, through AAHBRCP, plays a major role in addressing research needs and training in aquatic animal health and biosecurity and is able to direct funding priorities to the most pressing areas. AAHBRCP provides a cohesive national approach to FRDC-supported R&D by providing leadership, direction and focus for health R&D and other related non-R&D activities. According to an external review of AAHBRCP undertaken in 2015 the consensus among major stakeholders was that AAHBRCP provides an essential service for the aquatic animal sector. Given the success of the AAHBRCP there is a need to continue it as a means of providing the service with consideration given to adjustments (reflected in this proposal) to enhance the service it provides for the evolving needs of Australia’s seafood industry, public policy and program needs

The so called pragmatic approach to the welfare of aquatic animals (Arlinghaus et al. 2007) measures welfare status using a variety of well-established, un-controversial physiological and functional parameters (Rose et al. 2014, Browman et al. 2019). For example, all finfish, crustaceans and cephalopods can experience stress, which can lead to poor welfare outcomes (Rose et al. 2014). From an animal welfare perspective, the overall aim to maximise fish welfare during capture is to minimise stress within the constraint of practices inherent to the relevant fishing sector (Mazur and Bodsworth 2022).
Using this pragmatic approach, the Aquatic Animal Welfare Working Group (AAWWG) which was formed under the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS, 2005-2014), developed a range of Overarching Welfare Principles which related to finfish harvested from the wild in commercial fishing industries.
Out of the eight Overarching Principles developed by the AAWWG, as pointed out by Mazur and Bodsworth (2022) the three that are most relevant to the commercial wild harvest industry are:
1. Timely handling from capture to death is essential to minimise stress;
2. Capture methods should be designed to minimise the capture of unwanted species
3. Any fish selected for harvest should be killed as rapidly as possible, by humane means suitable for the species.
To address the legislative issues under the new Act, meet current and future fish welfare challenges, and maintain their social license to fish, commercial fishers targeting sharks in the NT need to develop workable and effective standards for handling and dispatching sharks which can be recognised and prescribed under the new Regulations.
Since shark fisheries are specialist fisheries which were not covered by the AAWWG during the AAWS, there is a need to develop specific resources to assist the industry with humane dispatch of sharks.
Science shows that brain destruction by pithing or “iki-jime” is the fastest way to dispatch finfish, resulting in the lowest levels of stress and maximising the quality and shelf life of the resulting fish product (Poli et al. 2005, Diggles 2015). However, the brains of sharks are small and vary in location between species, which is why this project is being proposed and is necessary to determine the brain location of the sharks most commonly captured in the NT shark fishery, and then examine various methods of rapidly destroying the brain, in order to develop guidelines and best practice protocols for their humane dispatch. Importantly, it should be noted that this is an industry driven project.

References

Arlinghaus R, Cooke SJ, Schwab A, Cowx IG (2007). Fish welfare: A challenge to the feelings based approach, with implications for recreational fishing. Fish and Fisheries 8: 57-71.

Browman HI, Cooke SJ, Cowx IG, Derbyshire SWG, Kasumyan A, Key B, Rose JD, Schwab A, Skiftesvik AB, Stevens ED, Watson CA, Arlinghaus R (2019). Welfare of aquatic animals: where things are, where they are going, and what it means for research, aquaculture, recreational angling, and commercial fishing. ICES Journal of Marine Science 76: 82–92. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsy067

Diggles BK (2015). Development of resources to promote best practice in the humane dispatch of finfish caught by recreational fishers. Fisheries Management and Ecology DOI: 10.1111/fme.12127

Mazur N, Bodsworth A (2022). Practicing aquatic animal welfare: Identifying and mitigating obstacles to uptake and adoption by the Australian Seafood Industry. Final Report for FRDC Project No 2019-023, March 2022. 60 pgs.

Poli BM, Parisi G, Scappini F, Zampacavallo G (2005). Fish welfare and quality as affected by presaughter and slaughter management. Aquaculture International 13: 29-49.

Rose JD, Arlinghaus R, Cooke SJ, Diggles BK, Sawynok W, Stevens ED, Wynne CD (2014). Can fish really feel pain? Fish and Fisheries 15: 97–133.