Aspects of feeding, maturation and osmoregulation in cultured juvenile greenback flounder
Establishment of the long-spined sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii) in Tasmania: a first assessment of the threat to abalone and rock lobster fisheries
El-Nemo SE: identifying management objectives hierarchies and weightings for four key fisheries in South Eastern Australia
While this program will cover the South-Eastern Australia marine region (including State and Commonwealth waters from approximately the South Australia/ Western Australia border to approximately the New South Wales/ Queensland border), the outputs will contribute to developing and implementing relevant national plans and strategies such as the National Climate Change and Fisheries Action Plan (Draft), and the National Adaptation Research Plan for Marine Biodiversity and Resources.
Within the context of the SEAP, the outcomes of this project will be used to inform the need and priorities for additional social and economic research, and will inform subsequent analyses of management and adaptation strategies. It will also complement and inform the development of a vulnerability framework for use in the marine context in SEAP.
Final report
Development of an algal bloom monitoring buoy for the Australian aquaculture industry: proof of concept
Tactical Research Fund: managing inshore stocks of southern rock lobster for a sustainable fishery
There is clearly a concern in the Tasmanian lobster industry about the status of inshore component of the stock. Catch has declined in a number of areas, despite improvements in catch rates. In the Northeast, catch is at record lows, but CPUE has remained stable, which is a possible indicator of hyper-stability or false stability. The apparent stability in catch rates occurs because aggregations containing a major proportion of the population are fished down, as the fleet moves from one area of good catch rates to the next, resulting in a serial depletion of the aggregations, which is masked by the apparent stability in the fishing block. This can result in a very sudden decline in biomass once the entire block is depleted, posing a serious and immediate risk to the inshore component of the stock. There are two potential sources of this problem. Firstly, the scale of the current assessment model, of eight inshore areas (64m) and three offshore areas (>64m) is not be fine enough to detect localised changes in the CPUE or biomass. Secondly there are changes in fishing practices that have increased effort on inshore stocks, and it is unclear whether the extra effort in these practices is adequately recorded in estimates of CPUE. There has been a recent increase in potting effort, commonly referred to as double night fishing, whereby fishers set and haul their pots twice a night, compared to the standard practice of emptying pots once at dusk and/or once during the day. Currently we have no data on the composition of the catch in double night shots, and what proportion of captured lobsters are handled and released, and in fact what consequence this handling has on the overall health of the fishery.