Living fossil captured
The frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) gains its name from its six pairs of frill like gills. It is one of two remaining species of this ancient family which dates back 80 million years. It has a wide but patchy distribution in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on the outer and upper continental slope, generally near the […]
A+ for large trawlers in the small pelagic fishery
Two years after the Ministers of Environment and Fisheries imposed a temporary ban on the use of large scale freezer trawlers in the SPF, an Expert Panel has produced a report that gives a cautious green light to fishing. The Panel found that these vessels should be managed in a precautionary, risk-based way – effectively […]
Cooked seafood one step closer to being properly labelled
A Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee has reported on the current requirements for labelling of seafood. The Committee’s terms of reference included whether the current seafood labelling requirements: provide consumers with sufficient information to make informed choices, including choices based on sustainability and provenance preferences, whether they allow for best-practice traceability […]
An end to Victorian caught inshore fish?
The Victorian Government has announced it will buyback commercial fishing net licenses in Port Phillip Bay within 10 years, and pledged $20 million to begin the process if it is re-elected. The State Opposition followed announcing a similar scheme within days of the Government’s announcement. SETFIA understands that the Victorian Coalition Government was pushed into […]
What happens when commercial fishing ends?
In 2001 NSW introduced a recreational fishing fee that generated revenue for the Government. Some of this revenue was used to remove commercial fishing and create a “Recreational Fishing Haven” in the Tuross Lake. A report by the NSW Department of Primary Industries aimed to estimate the recreational fishing effort and harvest in the Lake, […]
Intelligence no prerequisite for politics
Having recently spent two months travelling throughout Europe on a Nuffield Australia Scholarship researching varying fishing practices and management regimes I was, for a brief moment, proud that Australian fisheries are managed so well, so sustainably and that Australian fisherman are leading the world in using the lowest impact techniques available globally. My pride in […]
The other roughy – Darwin’s Roughy
This rare fish was caught off Eden in 200m of water and is believed to be a Darwin’s Roughy (Gephyroberyx darwinii). Other common names include Darwin’s Slimehead and the Finescale Roughy. The name suggests it was named by Charles Darwin but in fact it was named by Johnson in 1886. Literature suggests that it is […]
Its official – no overfishing occurring in the south-east
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Senator Richard Colbeck, yesterday released the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Fishery Status Reports 2013-14. This is the 19th year that the report has been run. The report assesses the status of all 93 Commonwealth fish stocks across 21 fisheries. The independent report […]
2014 Fishery Independent Survey Finishes
Catches in the South-East are controlled by quotas which are based on assessments of fish stocks. For many years, industry, managers and researchers have recognised the problems with using catch and effort data from commercial logbooks as the main index of abundance for SESSF species. This has been particularly the case in the South-East where […]
Current seabird mitigations have reduced problem by 75%
Warp deflectors, commonly known as ‘pinkies’, have been proven effective in reducing seabird interactions with trawl warp wires by 75% according to the results in the report by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority titled, Assessing the Effectiveness of Seabird Mitigation Devices in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery of Australia. A summary of the […]