Research undertaken in the Queensland 'hopper' pilot study and South Australia's Spencer Gulf prawn trawl fishery has suggested that the use of hoppers in prawn trawl operations can enhance the survival of bycatch species. Whilst preliminary results from both the Queensland pilot study and current research in the Spencer Gulf support these suggestions, there exists various views across Australian as to whether hoppers actually do make a positive contribution towards increasing the survival of bycatch species.

Over the last few years, the uptake of hoppers in Australian prawn trawl fisheries has increased, with many vessels in the Northern Prawn, Exmouth Gulf, Spencer Gulf and Gulf of St Vincent prawn trawl fisheries now using hoppers. In most of these fisheries the rate of adoption has been driven by the economic benefits relevant to improved product quality and increased operational efficiencies when using hoppers. However, a coordinated and cooperative review to determine and quantify the effects of hoppers has not been undertaken.

NORMAC’s Bycatch Action Plan has identified research into the effects of hoppers on bycatch survival as a ‘high priority’. The East Coast Trawl Plan also includes the need to reduce bycatch by 40% by 2005 and flags that hoppers could assist this target. SARDI have proposed that hoppers, used as part of a suite of bycatch mitigation strategies, could improve bycatch survival. NSW estuary prawn trawl operators supported the concept of hoppers and the need for further research into hoppers was identified as a 'high priority' at the Estuary Prawn Trawl MAC meeting held at NSW Fisheries in July 2002.

Both CSIRO and SARDI submitted industry-supported hopper focused research applications into their respective FRABs for this current round of FRDC funding. Both proposals included the involvement of SeaNet officers to facilitate industry involvement in documenting the current use and understanding of hopper operations and assist with the extension of information across identified target fisheries.

An independently facilitated workshop was held in September 2002 to bring together industry and research stakeholders from both Commonwealth and State prawn trawl fisheries in WA, SA, NSW and Queensland (East Coast Trawl and Torres Strait) to progress the development of a national hopper R&D framework. Outcomes from the workshop supported the need of a coordinated national project approach to be developed, with respect to future research, education and communication activities relevant to hoppers.