12,317 results

Determining ecological effects of longline fishing in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery

Project number: 2004-063
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $562,357.40
Principal Investigator: Jock Young
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 14 Apr 2005 - 30 Nov 2008
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The ET&BF is presently dealing separately with a number of ecological issues. For example, impacts of longliners on shearwaters and turtles are current high profile problems. However, other issues such as depletion of swordfish, SBT bycatch, availability of tunas in relation to oceanographic features, bycatch of sharks and finning have all taken centre stage at different times in the short history of the domestic fishery. This approach is often reactionary, rather than strategic, and may not be the best use of research resources over the long-term. If the ET&BF is to move substantially toward ecosystem-based fishery management, as it is required to do under the EPBC act, rather than continue the individual species management approach, an ecosystem analysis providing ecosystem metrics must be developed. If, for example, ET&BF managers opt for time area closures as part of their management strategy to protect key species, developing these on a species-by-species basis has the potential to impact the whole fishery. To develop and evaluate time area closures that allow for minimizing risk of adverse impacts to the suite of key species, while allowing for optimal efficiency of fishing, understanding the associations, linkages and interactions between species is essential. This is the ecosystem approach. Developing an understanding of how ecosystem-associations relate to oceanographic features is also essential in open ocean systems where the dominant influence on distribution and local abundance is oceanography. The approach we are taking will provide the information needed to support an ecosystem-based management framework. Through the analyses we are proposing we will identify regional “hot spots”, detail their linkages and provide detailed scenarios as to how we think different management strategies and fishing practices will or will not impact pelagic food chains, ecologically related non-target species, competitors (e.g. sharks, marlins etc.) and their associated ecosystems. The need for ecosystem-based fishery management for the Western Pacific region has also been supported by PrepCon for the soon-to-be formed WCPFC (Working Paper 9, 2002).

Objectives

1. Identify the spatial extent and the temporal stability of the main ecosystems of the eastern tuna and billfish fishery based on their species composition and physical environment.
2. Define the trophic structure within these ecosystems with emphasis on the relationship between target, bycatch and threatened and protected species.
3. Develop an ecosystem model for the ETBF fishery incorporating data on the relative abundance of the species, trophic linkages and the physical environment from which the impacts of longline fishing on the ecosystem can be investigated and from which alternative harvest strategies can be evaluated.

Final report

ISBN: 9.78E+12
Author: Jock Young
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2016-139
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Decadal scale projection of changes in Australian fisheries stocks under climate change

Australia's oceans are undergoing rapid change and changes in fish distribution, abundance and phenology have been widely reported. A first step in ensuring that the fisheries of Australia adapt effectively to climate change is an understanding of the historical and projected changes in the species...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2013-047
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Tactical Research Fund: synthesis of existing information, analysis and prioritisation of future monitoring activities to confirm sustainability of the red-legged banana sub-fishery in the Joseph Boneparte Gulf

To evaluate the ecological sustainability of the at‐risk species, habitats and ecosystems impacted by the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf (JBG) sub‐fishery, we synthesized existing data and assessments, and detailed the changes that have occurred in the fishery in relation to temporal and spatial trends in...
ORGANISATION:
NPF Industry Pty Ltd
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2003-026
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Environmentally sustainable development of barramundi cage aquaculture

A preliminary sensory evaluation study was conducted to confirm the presence of a taint issue. Prior to this the issue was reliant on purchaser feedback and was not verified independently. To examine the issue of flavour taint a series of barramundi samples were collected from Lake Argyle (purged...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) WA
SPECIES
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-506
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Ralf Yorque Symposium and Ecopath with Ecosim Training Course

This report summarises the outcome of a Ralf Yorque symposium – a small fairly informal series of workshops aimed at providing the big picture thinking space needed to underpin multi-year, multi-project research programs that incrementally piece together the necessary components of a...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

Development of a user-friendly desktop tool based on existing Atlantis runs

Project number: 2010-043
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $85,743.00
Principal Investigator: Beth Fulton
Organisation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Project start/end date: 31 Jul 2010 - 30 Jun 2011
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Fisheries Managers often need to rapidly explore possible impacts of a range of potential changes to a fishery (for example, changes in fuel and fish prices, biophysical, environmental and economic drivers of the fishery, and alternative fisheries management regulations). Unfortunately, the preparation and implementation time involved in an end-to-end ecosystem modeling project (e.g. the Alternative Management strategies for commonwealth fisheries) means that delivery time is typically years (likely 3-4 years) at a potential cost of millions. This is simply too slow to be of use to many of the rapid turn around questions management bodies are presented with. However, the decisions that need to be made would benefit from system-level strategic information if it were available; and fisheries managers and other stakeholders, including the fishing industry, would gain significant insights into the fishery from the ability to explore such changes without the need to undertake specific research projects.

To this end the best approach is to preemptively create a library of runs that span a large number of potential management strategies and scenarios of interest and to have it to hand as an accessible data source through a user-friendly interface that can be explored from the user’s desktop. This need has been identified by key stakeholders, like the AFMA managers and lead to the ComFRAB call for this project. In the short term this tool is best developed and applied around a library of runs set up for southeastern waters and the SESSF, but the benefit can be much broader than that – both in terms of creating a framework for future use with other Atlantis (or multispecies) model output and indirectly by providing a way of interrogating a complex marine system to gain general insights into their function and implications of different forms of management.

Objectives

1. Develop an easily accessible desktop software application to allow fisheries stakeholders to analyse ecosystem model output and gather information on potential ecological and economic impacts of changes in the fisheries system due to alternative fisheries management arrangements.

Final report

ISBN: 978-1-922173-37-9
Author: Beth Fulton
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2003-072
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Trophodynamics of the GAB: assessing the need for an ecological allocation in the SA pilchard fishery

Shelf waters off southern Australia support the world’s only northern boundary current ecosystem. Although there are some indications of intense nitrate enrichment in the eastern Great Australian Bight (GAB) arising from upwelling of Subantarctic Water, the biological consequences of these...
ORGANISATION:
SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
SPECIES
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