443 results
Blank
PROJECT NUMBER • 2022-075
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

National Workshop to develop a regional collaborative plan to control the invasive Longspined Sea Urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii)

The 2023 National Centrostephanus Workshop was convened by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania. The workshop brought together 130 representatives from industry, government, research, Aboriginal communities, recreational fishing groups, and the community to: • Identify...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE TAS)

Revisiting biological parameters and information used in the assessment of Commonwealth fisheries: a reality check and work plan for future proofing

Project number: 2019-010
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $189,065.00
Principal Investigator: Karen Evans
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 16 Feb 2020 - 16 Aug 2021
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Much effort has been placed over the last couple of decades on the development of harvest strategies, stock assessments, risk assessments and the strategic use of ecosystem models to facilitate meeting the needs of the Commonwealth’s Harvest Strategy Policy. A focus on modelling to improve fisheries management has required effort towards method development. However, little effort has been made towards revisiting and updating the biological parameters that fundamentally underpin such modelling (e.g. growth rates, age and size at maturity, natural mortality rates, dietary information, mixing rates and stock structure) and the tools or methods used to derive them. As a result, most models now rely on parameters and community dietary data derived from information collected during the 1970s-1990s, (e.g. available maturity ogives for blue-eye trevalla are over 20 years old), or information that is borrowed from other regions or species. Whether such old or borrowed values are now representative for commercial Australian fish species is unknown but many factors point to major changes occurring in our marine environment. Australian waters in the south east and south west are climate hotspots and, overall, Australian waters have warmed faster than the global average. Key components of the productivity of marine fish (growth, maturity, and recruitment) are expected to be undergoing directional changes under a changing climate and it is entirely possible that there have been changes in fundamental productivity parameters for some Australian stocks. The reliance of current assessments on what is likely to be out-of-date information leads to increased uncertainty, which propagates into management decisions. Without an understanding of any changes in biological parameters and how any change might impact assessment frameworks, determining whether current management measures are ensuring sustainability becomes highly uncertain.

Objectives

1. Identify the origin of current biological information used in assessments of species (including empirical stock assessments and ecosystem modelling efforts) carried out under the Commonwealth Harvest Strategy Policy, including the pedigree of the information (provenance, age, appropriateness of methods used).
2. Assess the implications and risks associated with using dated and borrowed information in assessments currently used for informing fisheries management, including the scale of any risks and the species for which a change in biological parameters used in assessments has the greatest impact.
3. Identify the methods that might be applied to update priority biological parameters, including a review of the efficacy and applicability of novel methods and approaches developed in recent years.
4. Articulate a work plan including appropriate sampling regimes required for updating priority biological parameters used in assessments for those species identified as being at most at risk.

Final report

Authors: Karen Evans Elizabeth A. Fulton Cathy Bulman Jemery Day Sharon Appleyard Jessica Farley Ashley Williams Shijie Zhou
Final Report • 2023-01-12 • 4.62 MB
2019-010-DLD.pdf

Summary

The project re-assesses key biological parameters for south-eastern Australian fish stock.

Project products

Fact Sheet • 2023-01-12 • 163.65 KB
2019-010 biological parameters table.xlsx

Summary

Table of biological parameters accompanying the final report for project 2019-010
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-124
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Southern Ocean IPA - Science to support Australia’s Southern Ocean Fisheries 2018-2020

This collaborative project between the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) addressed key research needs between 2018 and 2020 for Patagonian Toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), Antarctic Toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) and Mackerel Icefish...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2006-220
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Seafood CRC: Spatial management of southern rock lobster fisheries to improve yield, value and sustainability

(1) To enable assessment reporting of trends in biomass and egg production by depth. (2) To evaluate separate deep-water quota to increase yield and egg production. (3) To evaluate regional size limits in Tasmania for increase in yield and egg production. (4) To conduct field...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-210
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Adapt or Fail: Risk management and business resilience in Queensland commercial fisheries

This study sought to explore how different types of fishing businesses adapted to different types of change within Queensland’s east coast fisheries. The project team first sought to classify fishing businesses into ‘types’, exploring the industry structure in a new and...
ORGANISATION:
James Cook University (JCU)
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2016-068
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Vulnerability of the endangered Maugean Skate population to degraded environmental conditions in Macquarie Harbour

Maugean Skate (Zearaja maugeana) are only known from two isolated estuarine systems located on the west coast of Tasmania, representing one of most restricted distributions of any elasmobranch. There is, however, uncertainty about the continued persistence of the species in one of these estuaries...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
SPECIES
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2012-239
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Tactical Research Fund: forecasting spatial distribution of SBT habitat in the GAB

This was a collaborative project between the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association, the CSIRO, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, co-funded by the FRDC. It aimed to investigate habitat preferences of Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) in the Great Australian Bight and to provide...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

The use of BRUVs as a tool for assessing marine fisheries and ecosystems: A review of the hurdles and potential

Project number: 2010-002
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $30,000.00
Principal Investigator: Euan S. Harvey
Organisation: University of Western Australia (UWA)
Project start/end date: 14 Aug 2010 - 29 Nov 2010
Contact:
FRDC

Need

National reviews of Fisheries R&D needs (FRDC95/055) have identified the need for non-extractive, fishery-independent sampling and stock assessment techniques which are cost-effective, repeatable and robust across and range of habitats and depths. These methods are becoming increasingly important as Australian fisheries face the challenge of addressing ecosystem based fisheries management and climate change. A national workshop on the use of video for sensing the size and abundance of target and non-target fauna in Australian fisheries (FRDC2000/187) highlighted the potential for Baited Remote Underwater Video systems (BRUVs). After a decade, there has been wide adoption of this technique. However, differences in protocols for deployment, analysis and interpretation make spatial and temporal
comparisons of data difficult.

There is the need to develop a robust set of nationally agreed upon protocols to ensure that users are appropriately informed and trained through a comprehensive extension and capacity building program that also identifies key unresolved technical issues.

With the increased testing and use of BRUVs a number of independent developments have occurred. Future technological advances and more detailed statistical and modelling approaches will result in the BRUVs data being more useful for ecosystem assessment and management. Maximising the potential that these advances will provide to Australian fisheries will be achieved by a co-ordinated and
collaborative research strategy. We propose to host a two day workshop to critically evaluate the use of BRUVs as a data collection tool
for scalefishes and sharks. The workshop will identify the strengths, limitations and identify potential solutions.

Objectives

1. To critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of data collected with BRUVS for detecting changes in the relative abundance, length frequency and community composition of scalefishes and sharks.
2. To identify potential solutions to limitations.
3. To develop a nationally agreed to protocol for the deployment of BRUVs and the analysis of the resulting imagery.
View Filter

Species

Organisation