The Queensland aquatic animal disease emergency training exercises highlighted the need to fully adapt the National CCM to suit Queensland’s conditions and within Queenslands legislative framework. There is also a need to conform to the national arrangements for Commonwealth/State/Territory communication, liaison and coordination in aquatic animal disease emergencies. The need is to produce a publication that takes the broad, 'whole of government' approach to aquatic animal disease management required under both Commonwealth and Queensland arrangements but which is potentially adaptable to the needs of other States and Territories. The publication should also be in a form and style that allows for simplicity and ease of use in awareness, training and simulation activities.

The project is of considerable importance to both industry and the community:
- since December 2002 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) require all food produced to be labelled with potential allergens
- the increased consumption of seafood is resulting in concomitant increase in reports of allergies to seafood
- a duty of care is owed by employers to people working in the catching, processing and retail of seafood. Better information will allow preventive measure to be taken to control exposure to airborne allergens and costly litigation to be avoided.

The results of this project will help to develop a more comprehensive research program investigating:

- the development of detection kits for the detection of airborne allergens
- the characterisation of allergens and comparison with known seafood allergens
- the exposure response relationship of allergen exposure and health outcomes.

In his assessment of the Queensland spanner crab fishery for exemption from the export controls of the EPBC Act, the Federal Environment and Heritage Minister recommended that arrangements for joint monitoring and assessment of the shared stock of spanner crabs be made, with a view to eventual co-management. This process needs to be addressed before the next Commonwealth review of the fishery in five years’ time. While the development of complementary management arrangements is ultimately a core-business function of the two State governments, the evaluation of existing monitoring and assessment paradigms and the synthesis of a common reference point-setting process clearly requires significant collaboration between scientists, modellers and statisticians.

A workshop involving scientists and fishery managers from Queensland and NSW was held recently (27 September ’02) to examine collaborative options with regard to research and management in the spanner crab fisheries. The meeting agreed that there is a need to conduct simultaneous field trials of the two States’ monitoring surveys, to determine their relative cost-effectiveness as fishery-independent measures of stock abundance. The broad principles of such an exercise were agreed to, and details of the experimental design were fleshed-out at another meeting of research collaborators in NSW in late November.

Previous work aimed at estimating growth rates in spanner crabs has yielded highly divergent results, and none has provided a reliable estimate of age at recruitment. It is essential that this knowledge-gap is bridged because an estimate of age at recruitment is crucial to the successful development of age-based assessment models. Ideally such a model, tuned with the LTMP fishery-independent survey data, would replace the simplistic CPUE regression-based model.

While the fishery-independent spanner crab monitoring programme will overcome hyperstability problems inherent in the commercial statistics, it still requires the use of commercial gear, and is therefore subject to the same problems of variable catchability. These are presumably related to behavioural cycles of the crabs, habitat patchiness, and the effects of environmental factors such as water temperature. The impact of these factors on catchability needs to be investigated if survey and commercial CPUE data are to be interpreted correctly and the assessment process significantly improved.

Predation by toothed whales on fish hooked by longline and dropline gear is becoming more prevalent throughout Australian waters. The duration of the predation period appeared to be seasonal in the north-western Coral Sea fishery during the 1980's. However over recent seasons the duration of the mammals’ presence in the Coral Sea appeared to increase and observations of adults teaching young animals to predate on hooked fish became common. Predation by toothed whales in the Falkland Island Patagonian toothfish fishery appears to be a learned response with the problem dramatically increasing from a short seasonal problem prior to 2001, to a full season problem in 2002.

The development of a combination of predation mitigation methods is urgently required. Losses to the fisheries due to predation, and the increasing likelihood that mortality to mammals may occur with resultant poor publicity for the fishery and increased scrutiny of biodiversity and sustainability issues, necessitate immediate action. Predation by toothed whales in the eastern, southern and western Australian longline fisheries is expected to increase. Apart from an informal review of SENTMAC operations in the blue-eye trevalla fishery by Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife (Rosemary Gales, pers. comm.), no fisheries data are available for the incidence of predation issues by toothed whales in Australian waters. The AFMA Observer Program has commenced monitoring of all forms of predation damage in Australian fisheries, including seals, sharks and toothed whales.

Terminal stage predation events in the north-western Coral Sea fishery have only recently been observed as mammals appear to have become less apprehensive about approaching fishing vessels. The nature of the predation evidence on the fish is now more varied in the Coral Sea than in the mid-1980’s when it was first reported. This suggests that more than one species may be involved, each with its own characteristic bite pattern (McPherson et al. 2003). Whether the terminal stage of each event is acoustic, visual, or a combination of both is not known. Observations of the method of approach of the mammals during predation events, would assist in the development of appropriate mitigation and gear modification methods.

Predation has been increasing on marlin hooked by the Cairns-based game fishery. Predation is now occasionally reported by smaller toothed whales such as dolphins (family Delphinidae) from coastal fisheries (including Queensland waters) and is likely to increase in commercial and recreational fisheries all State waters as it has in coastal Hawaiian waters.

At the Queensland Fisheries Service (QFS) "Invitational workshop on acoustics to reduce marine mammal interactions" Brisbane April 2002, the keynote speaker Prof Jon Lien (Chair of Ministers Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans) brought to Australia by NHT funding indicated that predation issues are now reaching extreme levels in at least a dozen countries. No research was being conducted on predation issues, and there was no clear certainty within fisheries circles about what research to conduct.

While the mammal predation issue does not pose a major threat to the continuation of the longline fishery, there is real concern that mammal interaction issues may not be considered on a scientific basis. Bache and Evans (1999) pointed out that while Australian fisheries albatross bycatch policy was influenced by scientific data, environmental non-government organisations (NGO’s) were instrumental in determining Government dolphin bycatch policy. Policy development catalysed by NGO action was considered by Bache and Evans (1999) as least likely to achieve consensus resolution. Commonwealth and State fisheries policy would best be served by achieving consensus resolution through scientific monitoring of the interactions.

Interaction problems are not restricted to economic returns to the fishery and direct threats to the well being of toothed whales. Increasing predation rates reflect a probable change of diet for some species. Based on interactions between dolphins and some trawl fisheries, there could also be a disproportionate population increase of some species that would put many animals under threat if fishing effort, hence opportunities for predation, were to reduce.