The bycatch of dolphins and other protected/listed species in the PFTIMF has been recognised as being too high by the WA Minister of Fisheries and the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. In 2005, the Minister wrote to industry participants expressing his concern for the “…real or perceived lack of adequate action being undertaken to address this serious bycatch issue…”. He indicated that he was prepared to close the fishery to protect the industry’s reputation should progress not be made. Semi-flexible exclusion grids reduced the dolphin catch rate by almost 50% in 2006, but the Minister has stated that further reductions are necessary if the fishery is to continue.

In 2007, the need for a renewed approach to resolving the PFTIMF bycatch issues were further highlighted in reports from DoF to DEWHA and the Draft Bycatch Action Plan: There are significant differences in bycatch reporting between trips with and without independent observers on board; Observer coverage was set at a minimum 22% to gain data that would prove statistically robust, but only 19% was achieved in the first half of 2007; Temporal/spatial data on bycatch has been collected, but the data has proven inconclusive or has not been analysed in detail; A deck-mounted electronic observer system designed to replace on-board observers has proven unsuitable thus far; and, bycatch continues.

There are both biological and political needs for an immediate effort to further reduce bycatch. Common themes to successful implementation of bycatch reduction include: Collaborations between industry, scientists and resource managers; Pre- and post-implementation monitoring; and, compliance via enforcement and incentives. This project has been designed to conform to these themes and to meet the need of assisting industry in moving from ‘Interim Managed’ to ‘Managed’ fishery status and fulfilling the requirements of the EPBC Act.

Although methods exist for projecting the outcome of alternative management strategies when sufficient data exist to allow fitting of traditional fishery dynamics models, such approaches are typically not available when the paucity of data makes it impossible to fit such models. Such is the case for many of the finfish fisheries in south-western Australia, in which a considerable proportion of the catch has been taken by recreational fishers. For these fish stocks, current assessment must rely strongly on age composition data and mortality estimates from equilibrium-based models. The potential impacts of recruitment variability on these stocks, which are heavily exploited, have yet to be factored into management decisions. The Department of Fisheries, RecFishWest, WAFIC, and the WA FRAB have recognised that, for key demersal finfish species, there is an urgent need to assess the implications of variable recruitment and to respond appropriately when setting allowable levels of total catch. To sustain heavily-exploited stocks, it may be appropriate to reduce exploitation following periods of low recruitment to husband the survivors of earlier, stronger year classes, and thereby ensure that adequate spawning potential remains available until a further strong year class enters the fishery. Methods that employ the types of data available for fisheries in south-western Australia and by which the strengths of recruiting year classes might be taken into account in assessing an appropriate management response are currently not available to the Department of Fisheries’ scientists and are urgently needed. Generic tools and alternative operating models (models that represent our best understanding of the fish stock and fishery) are also required to assist in determining the adequacy and robustness of harvest strategies that are based on currently-available data and assessment methods.

One of the key objectives of the WA Department of Fisheries Business Plan is to ensure ecological and environmental sustainability of the pearling industry. The proposed project will be of direct benefit to the Western Australian pearling industry in that it will document the existence, if any, of the Haplosporidium and its effect on Australia’s most important commercial pearl oyster species.

Given the difficulties in detection and identification of Haplosporidium by current techniques (histology and light microscopy), there is a need for alternative, reliable, and cost-effective methods for detecting and speciation of Haplosporidium.

In the context of a pearling industry that is undergoing a process of intensification in which disease management continues as a priority issue, this lack of basic diagnostic capability needs to be addressed.

Such diagnostic tools will help assess the parasite’s impact on the pearl oyster and its potential threat to the industry, as well as providing tools to assist in diagnosis, epidemiology and surveillance of disease. This could be of key importance in trying to determine the true geographic extent of the parasite, to assess why the outbreaks have been sporadic in nature, and to assist in the early detection and management of possible future outbreaks.

In addition, there is an international shortage of pathologists with expertise in molluscan pathology and a national need for research projects that are suitable for the postgraduate training of aquatic animal health specialists.

The FRDC Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram (AAHS) and Scientific Advisory Committee has reviewed the preliminary research proposal and assessed it as high priority.

The closures to fishing declared as part of the Jurien Bay Marine Park are administered by the WA Department of Conservation and Land Management and are intended to conserve marine biodiversity and ecosystem function. The potential effectiveness of these closures for protecting both fished and unfished species, relative to alternative, more traditional, fisheries management strategies, is very uncertain. We propose to identify food web linkages between important fish stocks and other biota in the Jurien region and to evaluate how the food webs, and hence the fish stocks, respond to fishing closures. This research will address two of the high priority research areas for the WA FRAB: evaluating marine park planning (Priority 5); and developing an understanding of the knowledge requirements for cost-effective, ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries (Priority 6). In addition, it provides approaches to assess further the impact and role of rock lobsters and key finfish e.g. snapper, wrasse, dhufish, baldchin groper, in the broader ecosystem. This is one of the questions identified explicitly for investigation by the Rock Lobster Ecosystem Scientific Reference Group and an essential element of strategies to address the ESD obligations of fisheries. Although initially focused on the Jurien region, the qualitative and quantitative modelling approaches will increase the general understanding and develop knowledge that can be used to explore management options, including the design of protected areas, in other parts of temperate Western Australia. This project will provide approaches to promote the ecologically sustainable use of natural fisheries resources along the temperate west coast, thus helping to meet the requirements for Fisheries under the EPBC Act.

The western rock lobster fishery is to be one of the first of Western Australia’s fisheries to move to an integrated fisheries management (IFM) approach. Fundamental to this approach is the allocation of catch shares to the commercial and recreational fishing sectors and the implementation of appropriate controls to ensure that these catch shares are not exceeded. Although the commercial fishery has been the subject of much study, no dynamic models of the impact on the rock lobster fishery of recreational fishing effort have been developed. The only models that exist are empirical, statistical models that describe the catch and effort that are likely to be experienced following the specific levels of puerulus settlement that were recorded. To ensure that integrated fisheries management of the western rock lobster fishery is successful, there is an urgent need to develop a conventional fisheries model to describe the relationships between recreational and commercial catches and recreational fishing effort, particularly in the nearshore region where recreational fishing effort is concentrated. Knowledge of such relationships is essential if the response of catch shares to controls on recreational effort is to be predicted. The proposed study is intended as a pilot study to develop a basic model of the nearshore commercial and recreational fishery in several specific locations for use in the development of an IFM approach for the western rock lobster fishery and to identify more clearly the framework of a more detailed model of the fishery that will be required in the future to support IFM.