This project addresses an issue which has been debated for some time in the Tasmanian abalone fishery and is discussed at most industry and management meetings. It is an issue that affects the size of the harvest, the price of product and the productivity of the stock. Thus there is a need to resolve this management debate and there is also a need to explore these ideas for higher production.

The project will be of greatest value for the regions of the state where growth information is limited as production is low (to put this in context, this component of the Tasmanian fishery accounts for around 1600 t of production, which is more than total production in any other state). Management issues in these locations are often hard to resolve because of lack of biological information. This project may allow management to proceed with a second-tier level of data derived from shell condition, which is far more readily obtained than tag-recapture data.

The project also addresses the need for information on density dependent growth in abalone - put simply, can production be increased by "thinning out" the stock. This is a fundamental question that is of interest for abalone stocks around Tasmania and also interstate.