CSIRO Release 2019 Eastern Orange Roughy Spawning Biomass Report
An AOS survey completed in winter 2019 found that there were 42,600 tonnes of adult fish spawning on two hills in the eastern zone. Immature, non-spawning and southern fish were not surveyed and are additional to this. CSIRO FINAL REPORT AOS Eastern Zone 2019-compressed
Victoria’s Commercial Fisheries of 1862
By Ross Winstanley* In July 1862, Victoria’s out-going Inspector of Fisheries and Oyster Beds, James Putwain, wrote a report of his observations of the colony’s commercial fisheries to deputy premier Charles Duffy. Irish-born Duffy was the Commissioner for Public Works, President of the Board of Land and Works, and Commissioner for Crown Lands and Survey, […]
Victorian Government’s plan fails
The peak industry body for commercial fishers in Victoria is Seafood Industry Victoria (SIV). SIV is funded by a small compulsory fee on all Victorian fishing licences. The Victorian Government recently wrote to Victorian fishers asking if they wanted to continue paying this fee. Victoria has shut down net fishing in Port Phillip Bay, has […]
Fishing industry providing shark samples for assessments
Four years ago, AFMA installed cameras on gillnet vessels targeting sharks in the south-east fishery to monitor dolphin and sea-lion interactions. However, a consequence of doing this was that human observers were removed from these vessels. These observers collected data on interactions with dolphins and seals but also collected lengths and vertebrae, which are used […]
What’s to become of Victoria’s Gippsland Lakes commercial fishery?
By Ross Winstanley* Not content with their exclusive fishing access to every Victorian estuary, recreational fishers are now pushing for the closure of commercial fishing in the Gippsland Lakes. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Victoria’s annual 800 tonne Gippsland Lakes commercial fishery produced 80% of Australia’s black bream landings, averaging about 250 tonnes. Today, […]
Danish Seine Fishermen Act to Protect Juvenile Flathead Stocks
The harvest strategy in the South-East aims to maintain tiger flathead stocks at a pre-determined % of the pre-fishing, or virgin, biomass. This is called the target reference point. The flathead stock has been above this target for many years so fishermen have enjoyed quotas (total allowable catches or TACs) designed to slightly reduce flathead […]
Major changes in arrangements for commercial fishing in new Australian Marine Parks
From July 1 2018, new Australian Marine Park management plans will come into effect, creating new rules for where fishing can occur in 44 marine parks around the country. Australian Marine Parks are located in Commonwealth waters, 3 to 200 nautical miles from the coastline, beyond state water boundaries. Commercial fishing can occur in yellow and […]
NSW Southern Trawl Fishery to join the South-East Trawl
The NSW and Australian Governments have been working on merging the NSW managed Southern Fish Trawl and the Commonwealth managed South East Trawl fisheries. The NSW trawl fishery operates inside 3 nautical miles and the Commonwealth trawl fishery between 3 and 200 nautical miles. The push for the merger has come because the two fisheries […]
ABARES report South-East trawler profitability up
Latest financial and economic survey results from operators in the Commonwealth Trawl Sector (South East Trawl) shows that the profitability of vessels operating in the fishery improved in 2014-15. Generating a gross value of fishery production of almost $43 million in 2015-16, the South East Trawl is the major supplier of locally caught finfish to Melbourne […]
Seed bank protects food crop genetics
Buried deep in the icy mountains of a remote island in Norway, is a seed storage facility that currently houses almost 1 million plant seeds from almost every country in the world. Located 100 meters inside a mountain on the island of Spitsbergen, in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole its purpose […]