Sunfish & QLD Uni ?

[Mad_Barry]

Anyone catch the news with the Qld uni proffesor paying out on Sunfish ?

I only caught the end of it, he basically said that Sunfish had pulled the wool over the qld gov't eyes with regard to the minimal impact of rec fishing.

Then Vern was on, pretty well saying that this prof was "full of it" :)


Anyone seen a link for this Qld Uni report or news article ?

[Ron_Collins]

Hey Mad Barry

I saw a news report along those lines in a recent edition of The Courier Mail. No one from Sunfish was quoted in that one, as best as I can recall. That may help. Perhaps it's possible to search the CM's site? - Ron Collins, Ed.

[Vern_Veitch]

Mad Barry has got it pretty right.
Darry McPhee, a UQ lecturer who also represents the QSIA (commercial fishers) on some issues has produced a report that says that recreational fishing is destroying fish stocks and is basically not sustainable. He says that we impact on dugong, turtles etc anddestroy large amounts of bycatch whilst fishing. He also said that Sunfish had overestimated the economic benefit of recreational fishing and that the new snapper bag limit of 5 was too high as well.
I reponded for Sunfish by saying that all human activities have an impact but recreational fishng impacts are minimal compared to commercial fishing. I stated that there has not been even one fishery collapse anywhere in the world as a result of recreational fishing, that our most sustainable fishery was the freshwater fishery where there is no commercial fishing and that our impact on dugong, turtles etc is minimal (which it is) compared to other human activities including boat strike by large vessels and the impact of habitat loss.
I called on the government to fund an independant and comprehensive study that fully investigated the social and economic benefits of recreational fishing and environmental impacts.
Just an additional comment for this board - I think it is a case of the pot calling the dimmer plate black in regard to accusations of bycatch against recreational fishers. We put more than 50% of the fish we catch back in the water (mostly alive and with a high chance of survival) according to official QFS data.
I'll leave it for readers to make their own judgement.
Vern

[dazza]

Please excuse me as I am not as knowlageable as our learned academic, but would it be fair to say that my 10 ball sinker dragging over the bottom of Moreton bay has a bit less impact on seagrasses etc than
meters of heavy chain attached to the back of trawlers.
cheers
dazza

[CHRIS_aka_GWH]

perhaps the good professor is unaware of a place called the Pumistone Passage & its recent recovery despite a marked increase in rec fishers in the area since the cessation of commercial activity ...

It still has a way to go & will never reach its best again but at least the rec sector has an interest in the future of the place based on pleasure not $$$.

chris

[Jack_Lives_Here]

Bribie Passgae and Hinchinbrook. Both starting to recover.

This McPhee guy sounds like a dead set goose. Rec fishers and large amounts of by catch. This guy has been drinking Brisbane River water. Be interesting to know the good professors financial interest, with statements like that.

[jaybee]

From what i have found with study, Uni Lecturers / Professors, they if not all suffer from ostrich syndrome. They will come out and say something for a particular cause, then bury their heads in the sand hopping a. it will go away and b. they wont be seen again. Mostly because they have been misinformed.
cheers.

[Big-D]

These people call themselves Scientists what a JOKE.

[bugman]

I've got requests into the Uni's Communications department to get an electronic version of his research.
As yet no luck but his work isn't acknowledged through his department on their webisite nor has it gone through the PR area.

Maybe he was pushed to get stuff out quickly by certain sections of the community to counteract recent decisions regarding the damage being doen by commercial anglers ie. spotty mackeral.

Stop Me I'm becoming a conspiracy theorist just like JB.

Brett

[jaybee]

bugman
Stop Me I'm becoming a conspiracy theorist just like JB is it a conspiracy theory brett, or people (due to the economic climate) only too happy to put their hands out for a fee to say something, because they have a few letters after their name. Or does the government only want us to hear what they want us to hear. will be interesting to see if indeed they (the qld gov)do start putting posts on this site and the feedback from it. Because I beleive it will blow all the govs theories out the window, Lecturer/professor/scientist/ as recs we know what is going on, only thing is. We need to stand up and be counted, not have an attitude of she'll be right mate and yes i am cynical of this gov.
cheers.
joe

[webby]

Hi All, To give you some example of what these 3 wise men put out and they called it recreational fishing's catch 22. This was based on a 1998 survey of 4400 boats.
Seq snapper 148 rec tonnes comm 50 tonnes.
which boils down to working on a average fish of 6kg 5.6 fish per boat.
They also stated that only 4 reached the baglimit of 30.
Has everyone on this site caught 6 snapper this season ????
Fraser is Tailor.
Dont know where they got their figures for this one.
180 tonnes rec 25-55 tonnes comm
Now i dont no how many people fish fraser each year, so i worked it out on 4400 boat.
which give the average of 23 tailor each at 1.8kg (Bloody good tailor)
Pumicestone passage.
(bream/f/head/whiting) 43.1 tonnes rec 0 comm
So for example if you divided this by 3.
this gives your
16903 bream average 850g
9578 lizards average 1.5kg
35917 whiting average 400g.
Thats a bloody lot of fish.
Interesting to find out how they arrived at this total tonnage.
regards

[jaybee]

Hi Brian
I remember posting figures similar back in may (with phils help). I even went as far at a meeting in parliament house to prove the figures on the web page were wrong as they had different quotes on different pages of the same paper. wonder if they fixed them. They even had different figures for rec fishers on the same page a difference of 250,000 so can you expect the gov to get it right if on one page they quote 880,000 fishers and the next 630,000 and in the same sentence say we can only estimate. I took the liberty of saving and printing the page out and presented it back to the government at the meeting, egg on their faces. Or what i quoted before, She'll be right mate.
cheers.
joe.

[krazyfisher]

webby they get there figures from phone poles and how many fisherman tell the truth about there catch ;) and they have about 1000 people who carry log books when they fish in my mind these people would have to be keen fisherman to carry a log book and fill it out more than likely are better fisherman they work the averages of these people and times it by the number of rec fisherman I wonder how many of the rec fisherman that only fish 2 or 3 times a year carry log books?

and tailor is the only fish that is caught by more rec fisheramn than pro's as they are mostly in the high population areas and on a good day can bag out this is all fact but other than that part the rest of his statement which I have in front of me is bent and twisted please keep in mind this was a desk top study.

[jaybee]

I dont carry a log book and no one phoned me, in fact i dont know anyone who carries a log book or who was phoned. E.T. phone home, cause the government wont do it for u ;D geez i'm a cynical bathtub

[krazyfisher]

jaybee
I just changed my post but still read it keep in mind 1000 log books 800,000 plus rec fisho's must be true

[jaybee]

now i am lost krazy plz explain 1,000 log books, 800,000 fishers, damn i either need to go back to school or get some sleep, somethings not right here. or is it me. ???

[Vern_Veitch]

Thought this press release from Europe might add to the debate:
WWF Study shows cost of bycatch and discards in fishing industry


Hamburg, Germany The situation of fish stocks is critical: worldwide, 60% of stocks of fish for food are already overfished, or fished to the limit. In addition to the 85 million tonnes of fish, worldwide over 20 million tonnes of marine mammals, seabirds and fish are caught unintentionally in nets, and are mostly thrown overboard dead or dying.
This costs fishermen millions, but taxpayers have to foot the bill too. This is the conclusion of a study published today by WWF.
"Every year, millions of tonnes of fish die as bycatch, even before they have reached maturity. That means that they do not have the opportunity to reproduce, fish stocks are dwindling and fishermen can catch less and less", said Heike Vesper of WWF. The WWF calls on EU Fisheries Ministers to agree a new, environmentally sustainable fisheries policy at next week's EU Fisheries Council, to avoid more fish stocks collapsing and millions of marine creatures having to die.
The WWF study shows that:
* the value of discarded demersal species like cod, haddock or hake in the North Sea was 700 million euro up to 1994, which was approximately the same value as the quantity of fish sold;
* the quantity of landed swordfish, valued at 100 million euro, was actually below the number of swordfish thrown back;
* in 1983, in fishing for North Sea cod, over 3 million fish ended up as bycatch, which corresponds to a current market value of about 5.4 million euro;
* bycatches of sand flounders in European shrimp fisheries cause an annual loss of 12,000 tonnes of flounders, worth approximately 18 million euro.
However, not all the costs of bycatch and discards can be expressed in money terms: in the central and southern North Sea alone, over 7,500 porpoises die an agonizing death each year as bycatch in fishing for turbot and cod. Worldwide, 12 million sharks and 30,000 hawksbill turtles and green turtles also die every year as bycatch.
"The excessive bycatches in fisheries must be reduced quickly", says Heike Vesper. The WWF calls on EU Fisheries Ministers to ensure, as part of the reform of EU fisheries policy, that long-term management plans for fish stocks are introduced, and some fishing grounds are closed to protect immature and adult fish. The quota system adopted until now must be changed, so that all fish caught can also be landed and avoid a large part of catches being thrown back into the sea.
For further information: Heike Vesper, Fisheries expert, WWF Germany, Tel.: 0421/6584623, Mobile: 0173 2033348

[CHRIS_aka_GWH]

vern,
there's a very relevant article in this months (or may have been last months) Readers Digest on the decline of the Albatross. Researchers could not work out why the numbers returning to roost were dropping dramatically each year whilst their hatch rate/bird seemed constant & very few dead birds were being found anywhere etc. They were postulating all sorts of things like global warming & the like until ....

a researcher attended a long line fishing boat in the southern ocean. These things lay kms of line with thousands of hooks in a single shot. The albatross would hit the bait as it hit the water & then be dragged underneath to drown. They noted the number of birds killed on each shot of the line they observed then calculated something like 30,000 birds were being killed annually by the fleet as a whole. This in a population of birds with less than a million worldwide.

Some nations have taken steps to minimise this like only shooting the lines at night but others don't give a damn.

Gotta love bycatch eh.

chris

please forgive the figures if they are not quite correct - I'll check the article tonight at home & adjust if necessary (I think they are pretty right)

[Vern_Veitch]

I think it get's the message across Chris. The only thing signioficant about recreational bycatch is that it is INsignificant compared the what is wrought on non-tartget species by the commercial sector. In the East Coast Prawn Fishery in Queensland alone, with 10 000 tonne of prawn caught and a bycatch ratio of between 6 and 8 to 1 with bycatch reduction devices, this gives a bycatch of 60 000 to 80 000 tonnes of other marine creatures killed whilst targetting prawns. Just think about that and then realise that although not all of this is fish, nearly all of the fish that are bycatch are juveniles or small adults and weigh almost nothing individually and you will start to the the picture.
Vern

[Kerry]

I don't think anybody would have any real idea of what the rec catch was.

Always been one of those fairy figures and will probably always be just that.

Cheers, Kerry.