Snapper and pearl perch are depleted in Queensland and further reduction in fishing pressure is needed to rebuild stocks back to target levels. The Queensland Government announced actions to improve stocks on 1 Sep 2019 , which followed the announcement that they would also introduce Fishing Aggregation Devices (FADs). Given previous regulatory approaches have been unsuccessful in improving stocks of both species, it is proposed that regulatory changes, complemented by the implementation of action mapping and social marketing, may be more effective.

Social marketing delivers innovative solutions that people value and that support desired outcomes. It draws on behavioural science and a psychology-based understanding of how and why people behave, what motivates them to change and what prevents behaviour change. Work in Australia has documented the use of behavioural incentives to encourage voluntary compliance of recreational fishers as well as testing social norms as a tool to encourage compliance within an experimental recreational fishery setting. This work sets a foundation to apply the approach to Queensland recreational fishing.

The Queensland Government’s announcement that it will invest $1 million in FADs offers an opportunity to change recreational harvesting behaviour. FADs can attract pelagic species increasing the diversity of fish species recreational anglers can target and therefore could shift fishing effort away from more vulnerable demersal species (e.g. snapper and pearl perch).

This project will use a social marketing approach that initially focuses on understanding if and how recreational fishers can be motivated and moved to use FADs as a strategy to reduce snapper and pearl perch fishing. This project will also consider a full range of strategies and behaviours and their relative potential to help reduce snapper and pearl perch recreational harvests.

A key challenge in addressing the issue is the numerous and diverse stakeholders with an interest in recreational fishing – many with conflicting agendas. Approaches that engage a broad cross-section of stakeholders together can identify priorities for action and generate solutions to achieve the outcomes sought.

A better understanding of the impacts of environmental drivers on the population dynamics and abundance of key fishery species can inform flexible management decisions that pre-empt both risks of overfishing under adverse environmental conditions and opportunities for increased harvest under favourable conditions. This is increasingly important as shifting environmental dynamics drive geographical shifts in fish stocks.

This project will identify environmental variables influencing the abundance of three priority fishery species, quantify those relationships to enhance their stock assessment models, and develop a forward projection tool to inform adaptive management of each fishery. Target species - Spanner Crabs, Snapper and Pearl Perch – were selected based on key interest to management of fisheries in Queensland and NSW. Some associations between these species and certain abiotic environmental factors are already known, but there is yet to be a rigorous and comprehensive approach to this work, with the explicit goal of incorporating abiotic influences into Queensland and NSW stock assessments.

The project has three key objectives: (1) Find indices of association between measures of abundance and key environmental drivers; (2) Use these indices to enhance the existing stock assessment model for each species; and (3) Enable forecasting of environmentally driven fluctuations in targeted species’ abundance, including enhancing Management Strategy Evaluations (MSEs).

In particular, environmental correlates will be valuable to fisheries managers by: (a) reducing the uncertainty in biomass estimates, (b) explaining fluctuations in abundance, and (c) characterising what is a “bad year” for each species. Such information can be incorporated into MSEs.

The “Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027” identifies several challenges to fulfilling its mission of ensuring the sustainability of fisheries and the economic viability of fishing sectors. The first of these is “gaps in monitoring and research, which limit the ability to make timely, evidence-based decisions”. This project will close some of these gaps and assist in formulating measures for promoting stock recovery and adaptive management.

Available evidence suggests that most fish species harvested by the NSW demersal trap and recreational fisheries are taken at sizes that are too small to optimise yield and/or economic return. This is because most species taken in both of these fisheries either have MLL’s that are too small or do not have MLL's at all. There have only been stock assessments done on snapper (FRDC project No. 93/074) and silver trevally (FRDC project No. 97/125) in the trap fishery. Both studies showed that they were growth overfished and the results have been used to increase the MLL for snapper and to impose a MLL for silver trevally across all fisheries. Many other species taken by fish traps are in decline and it is highly likely that they are also growth overfished. Unfortunately, very little is known about the biology or life-history of these other species. Recreational fishers are significant harvesters of all species taken in the NSW demersal trap fishery and it is important that any MLL’s designed to reduce overfishing are applied across all fisheries.

NSW Fisheries does not currently have a policy for setting MLL's at particular sizes and the process developed during this study may form the basis for such a policy. It is important to consider several issues when setting appropriate harvest sizes and these include: (i) the size at sexual maturity; (ii) the size that will optimise yield; (iii) market requirements; (iv) an economic assessment, and (iv) public perception.

The information on biology, stock-assessment and protocols for setting appropriate harvest sizes developed during this project will directly address several key areas of importance recognized by the FRDC. The planned outcomes will lead to fisheries management being based more on the precautionary principle, will maximise the economic and social returns from harvesting these species while also providing for effective management of recreational fishing. These areas are considered to be high priorities by the NSW FRAB and by Recfish Australia in their National Research and Development plan for the recreational sector.