Reply With QuoteI don't begrudge the pros supplying aussie consumers, I do begrudge the pros catching fish to send overseas reducing opportunities for rec fishers.Originally Posted by Noelm
I think a total closure for a period of time is a great idea, it might give the stocks a chance to recover/replenish in some way..
As long as it is implemented across the board, enforced and fair to all see no problems with it at all..
I don't begrudge the pros supplying aussie consumers, I do begrudge the pros catching fish to send overseas reducing opportunities for rec fishers.
100% agree. This is what I believe is the problem in regards to the 87% decline rate having lived and spent many years fishing SA’s pristine waters. I can’t see any other reason that the snapper stocks down south are a direct result in local fish being exported. As an example at Xmas, the cost of local caught was $50+ a kilo. I understand Xmas prices being inflated, but a fish that is a prized trophy fish for locals is a much bigger size than we get up here in Queensland,
Again, in my opinion, this is a commercial fishing issue that needs to be addressed.
Can anyone on here recommend a snapper fish farm similar with the Tuna/Barra farms as an alternative viable compromise that could be an alternative solution? Or am I dreaming that such an alternative sustainable fishery could happen?
Fist farms are not exactly cut and dried either, the farmed fish have to be fed, to grow a (say) Tuna to the required size, takes a lot more than its weight in food, and a cheap reliable source of food is.....Pilchards! tonnes are taken to feed the farmed stock, but, who cares, they are only Pilchards? the rec fisho just goes to the shop and buys a block of them, but they represent a big part of the food chain, part of the "big picture" we don't like to see, we just want pros to stop catching our fish right? Unless "someone" comes up with a reliable, fully sustainable food source, that the farms will use, we are still taking from the natural stock of something, Snapper aquaculture is well advanced, then there is the consumer resistance, we all want "Wild" fish to eat, not farm raised, as I said way back, all sides of this needs to be considered, pro, rec, natural stocks, charter operators, the whole lot.
It would need to be on not just snapper then Noelm,
for instance, if they went ahead an indeed put the three year ban on snapper in SA, that would simply move pro and rec fishing on to other species would it not? King George whiting, Samson fish etc would cop a flogging.
People with invested interest such as charter boats and trailer boat fisho’s will still want to fish.
I don’t know what the answer is but a factual study into who it is that is taking the majority of stocks would be a good start down there.
Agree 100% there is simply no easy answer, whatever is done will need to be dramatic, providing the available data is correct, and it's not going to be popular, but, the whole fishery needs to be addressed, because (as you say) stop people from catching Snapper, they target something else, fish restocking programs seem to give wild stocks a quick recovery boost, natural stocks of anything are finite, and need to be looked after for everyone's benefit long term.
OK ….. I've done a bit of research & the alarm bells are clanging loud
Without a doubt - Commercial overfishing is an issue based on these statistics
2016/17 Snapper production
NSW (167 T) , Victoria (54 T) & Qld (72 T) totalled 293 tonne
South Australia 343 tonne
Not to be forgotten Western Australia @ 244 Tonne
Regardless of the biomass - that's a massive take when you compare it against the whole east coast of Australia & even WA
I think one of the issues going against farming Snapper is that they are slow growing - unlike fast growing Atlantic Salmon , Barramundi & Tuna which can be farmed due to the commercial viability. From memory a 40cm Snapper would be 5 or 6 years old.
Does Australia export a lot of Snapper ? …… I know we import a lot from NZ
Chris
Give a man a fish & he will eat for a day !
Teach him how to fish
& he will sit in a boat - & drink beer all day!
TEAM MOJIKO
I'm not really a snappa fisherman , but my last snappa trip didn't indicate any issue with snappa numbers.
FFS maybe some snowflakes just need to take some fishing lessons , only a millennial would expect that fish should find their boat jump in and fillet themselves.
BigE
That's a shit load of SA Snapper hey? just to put a twist on that, the recs (supposedly) caught 40% of the commercial catch? that's also a shit load of Snapper! I really can't see a quick fix for this, of course "ban the pros" seems simple, they are fewer number, and take a bigger amount of fish, but, they are pretty organised and vocal, and banning them would not be easy, the rec fisho (us) are big in number, and take a fair amount too, but compared to the pro sector, we are just a lynch mob, ill prepared and fragmented in our approach, I can see that all of this is going to get messy, and have far reaching implications, I do also agree with some previous comments about announcing a total ban, wait for the hysteria to die down, then back down to what was really intended anyway, it's a pretty common management technique.
The interesting thing for me is how on fishing shows over the last few years they have said how good the snapper fish was in SA. Rec fishermen have size and bag limits similar to Qld, but also a seasonal closure.
Commercial operators have a min size limit, seasonal closures and a total take limit. I dont think SA use fish traps as in NSW, its all done with hook and line.
Banning all snapper fishing for 3 yrs will put more pressure on other species. Perhaps a 12 month total ban and then a reduction in the commercial operation would be better.
Who knows but if its this bad they better go something before it's to late.
Sent from my [device_name] using Ausfish mobile app
Maturity is not when we start speaking BIG things,it is when we start understanding small things
South Australia 343 tonne! Wow! That’s insane when you consider the population down there to the east coast of the country.
Considering they have closures too. Bizarre.
When you look at the break down data of the 2018 South Australian Snapper stocks report, the region is geographically divided into three biomass regions.
Out of the 3 regions, one is classified as depleted and the other 2 are sustainable.
The Southern region which covers from Port Phillip Bay to the Southern edge of the Spencer Gulf is sustainable with the smallest commercial catch take.
The middle region which is the Spence Gulf ( Adelaide Region ) is depleted and classified as Unsustainable with the stocks about to crash.
The Northern region ( North Spencer Gulf to the WA border ), which has the largest commercial take and more than 3 times the amount of the other regions is also classified as sustainable.
Now that shows that the depleted biomass and crashing stock levels is where the majority of South Australians live, Adelaide to Port Lincoln surrounding the Spencer Gulf.
Somehow looking at these statistics, the rec anglers must be playing a major part in this stock depletion or maybe some other causes as a contributing factor.
The other 2 regions are relatively sparsely populated areas compared to the Adelaide and Spencer Gulf region and the stocks are still classed as sustainable even though those 2 areas supply around 3/4 of the commercial Snapper take.
Until Fisheries around Australia step up and force rec anglers to keep detailed log books like the commercial sector has to every time they go fishing, we will never know the true impact that we are having on fish stocks.
Log books would be nice, but us paranoid fishers would never fill it in properly, it would be fudged to suit what we thought would suit.
Log books will not be fudged Noelm if the system is run the same as the commercial sector where books must be filled out before the catch is landed.
By doing this, if you are checked at the ramp and your catch on board is different to your log book, you are slapped with a huge fine.
Any penalties would need to be big enough to deter people from fudging their log books and even more sever penalties for repeated offenders like gear confiscation and VMS tracking.
It would only need to run for 3 years so they can get accurate data across both good and bad fishing seasons.
This model of assuming the stock biomass from assumptions, phone calls and pathetic boat ramp surveys will never help out any fishery and will never give a true indication on what tonnage is being removed from the water every year.
Like always here we are handing over the answer as we see fit.
The answer to the problem is allready written in an envelope waiting for a consensus from both parties lol.
Posting Permissions
