4,100 results

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 The reliance of current assessments on what is likely to be out-of-date information leads to increased uncertainty, which propagates into management decisions.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
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-017
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Demand Conditions and Dynamics in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery: Empirical Investigation

This final report, a collaboration between economists from CSIRO, CQU and ABARES, is the first detailed analysis of the interrelationship between fish prices on the Sydney and Melbourne fish markets. In addition, the study derived empirical estimates of the own and cross-price flexibilities for the...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2016-018
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Determination of the spatial dynamics and movement rates of the principal target species within the Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery and connectivity with the broader western and central Pacific Ocean – beyond tagging

Accessing samples from broadbill swordfish from two sites within the WCPFC area was particularly problematic and was exacerbated by a poor fishing season in 2019. This resulted in samples for broadbill swordfish consisting of samples collected from the ETBF (2 years), Norfolk Island (1 year) and New...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2016-044
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Next-generation Close-kin Mark Recapture: using SNPs to identify half-sibling pairs in Southern Bluefin Tuna and estimate abundance, mortality and selectivity

This report presents the results of the first application of Close-Kin Mark-Recapture (CKMR) using both Parent-Offspring Pairs (POP) and Half-sibling Pairs (HSP). This application to Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) has been successful, providing a decadal time series of absolute abundance, total...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart

Understanding factors influencing undercaught TACs, declining catch rates and failure to recover for many quota species in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery

Project number: 2016-146
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $179,000.00
Principal Investigator: Ian Knuckey
Organisation: Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
Project start/end date: 31 May 2017 - 30 Jun 2018
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Despite the indicators of improvements in fish stock status for SESSF species, the fishery as a whole is failing to catch the TACs of many quota species. Moreover, catch rates for many quota species are continuing to decline despite the historically low levels of fishing effort. The fishery is not in an economic position where it can afford to operate below potential - this under catch equates to a considerable lost opportunity in both the financial value and the volume of fish available for the consumer. Net economic returns for the CTS have recently fallen to $1.4 million in 2013–14, the lowest level since the buyback. NER in the GHaT has been negative since 2008–09. Recent economc analyses (Pascoe pers comm) have revealed that if all vessels could catch the full recommended quota, revenues of the CTS would more than double, while the GHaT revenues would increase by around 24%. For the CTS, average vessel profits are likely to increase by between $200k and $500k, with an average increase of around $380k.

So, what is the cause of the current situation in the SESSF?

There are a variety of different reasons given for the SESSF's TAC undercatch, depending on who you talk to. Anecdotally, it has variously been attributed to reduction in fleet fishing capacity, effort reduction, legislative barriers, spatial closures, changed behaviour of operators, market factors, quota ownership and trading, cost of production, changes in catch per unit of effort, climate change and its impact on oceanographic conditions and potential range shifts of species. It is also quite likely that it is a combination of a number of the above factors.

What can be done?

With such a wide range of potential reasons, it is difficult to determine what further work is required to potentially address these issues in the SESSF. This project centres on development of background papers on each of the issues that will be presented at a workshop designed as the first step in clarifying stakeholder views on the underlying reasons and how they might be resolved in the future.

Objectives

1. Provide a range of papers with information on potential causes of undercaught TACs, declining catch rates and non-recovering species
2. Hold a workshop to discuss plausible reasons for undercaught TACs, declining catch rates and non-recovering species
3. Develop strategies to address the undercaught TACs, declingin catch rates and non-recovering species based outputs from Objective 1 and 2.
4. Develop a process for assessing non-rebuilding species.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9954122-9-3
Author: Peter O'Brien and Ian Knuckey
Final Report • 2017-06-06 • 8.29 MB
2016-146-DLD.pdf

Summary

Concerns about the ecological and economic sustainability of Australia’s Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) prompted major structural readjustment of the fishery in 2006 that significantly reduced the number of operators in demersal trawl, Danish seine and gill net sectors of the fishery.  A decade later, many of the ecological sustainability issues have been addressed and despite declining Gross Value of Production (GVP), there has been variable but overall improvement in net economic returns (NER) of the fishery.  There remains, however, a number of indicators in the fishery that may point to significant sub-optimal performance in terms of stock sustainability and fishery profitability as outlined below. 

At the end of the 2015/16 year, 23 of the 34 species groups under TACs were less than 50% caught. Of the major quota species, only four had catches above 80% of the TACs (Flathead, Gummy Shark, Pink Ling and School Whiting).

There has been a continual decline in catch rates for many quota species with a range of life histories.  Similar trends in decline over the last two decades have been observed for Jackass Morwong, Redfish, Blue Eye Trevalla, Silver Warehou, Blue Warehou, John Dory and Ribaldo, despite the lowest historical effort and catch levels in the fishery. Unstandardised CPUE across the fishery has declined for several years hitting an all-time low in 2015 and has remained at this level in 2016. Moreover, optimised CPUE standardizations for 23 species (including grouped species) and 43 different stocks, methods, or fisheries revealed 29 of the 43 SESSF stocks were found to have declining standardised catch rates.  

Historically overfished species (Eastern Gemfish, School Shark, Blue Warehou and most recently Redfish) have shown little sign of recovery despite over a decade of the lowest catches on record resulting from significant management changes under relevant rebuilding strategies
(including bans on targeting, implementation of industry driven avoidance measures, and implementation of spatial closures).  The overfishing and subsequent recent recovery of the eastern Orange Roughy stock over the last two decades is well documented – but it is an exception.  

There are many and varied reasons to explain these issues in the SESSF, but there has been no attempt at a coordinated approach to identify which factor/s may be the cause, much less how these may be addressed.  This project was designed to start this process.

Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-202
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Maximising net economic returns from a multispecies fishery

Achieving fishery MEY may result in a reduction in net economic returns in a broader sense if the loss to consumers exceeds the gain to the industry. Such a loss may occur if supplies to the local market are reduced and prices paid by consumers increase. This results in a transfer of benefits from...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2015-204
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Realising economic returns of reducing waste through utilisation of bycatch in the GAB Trawl Sector of the SESSF

Fisheries bycatch reduction and utilisation is an important topic in the western world in both policy and research developments. At an international level, the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries directs management agencies and fisheries to reduce discards through development and...
ORGANISATION:
Fishwell Consulting Pty Ltd
Communities
PROJECT NUMBER • 2017-098
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Southern Bluefin Tuna: Changing The Trajectory

Life on the Line is the true story of the Southern Bluefin Tuna, its biological traits and its history of exploitation and most recently its recovery. This documentary covers how research, managers and the fishing industry - commercial and recreational have contributed to the recovering status of...
ORGANISATION:
Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA)
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2018-020
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Cumulative impacts across fisheries in Australia's marine environment

The world is changing more rapidly than any one individual can track. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (1999) (EPBC Act) requires for all human activities, such as fisheries, to be sustainable not only in isolation but in combination with other anthropogenic...
ORGANISATION:
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2016-059
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Guidance on Adaptation of Commonwealth Fisheries management to climate change

This project is comprised of four key components: (i) FRDC Final Report (Appendices 3-5 are provided as standalone documents); (ii) Adaptation Handbook (designed to help fisheries managers, operators – and anyone else helping to support fisheries – step through a risk assessment and...
ORGANISATION:
Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA)
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