Arti locations

[Horse]

What do you think is the important selection criteria should be for the location of our proposed artificial reef sites. I will put up a poll depending on what ideas come up.
To me the issues are personal safety, accessibility for the majority of anglers and replacement of areas traditionally fished by rec fishos that are now closed
What do you think?

[Lucky_Phill]

Neil,

There are many considerations when choosing a site.

Firstly, what area:-

Offshore, Inside a bay, connected to land.

From a Marine Safety point of view for bay and offshore arti's, there has to be a minimum clearance from top of structure. This is considered to be 15 mtrs.

Not placed in shipping channels.

Arti's must be constructed of suitable materials that encourage algae and micro-organism growth, which in turn will provide the basis for a new or expanded habitat.

The seabed is also important. They can't be placed on areas that have high seabed drift effects.

They can't be placed in areas that are used for commercial net fishing, ( Trawlers )

Size of the arti is also important. It needs to cater for the stakeholders it is designed for. Some of the new arti's are for spearfishos.

I believe an arti should be placed in an area that can be expanded over time as new and or " materials of opportunity " arise or come to hand.

I also believe, arti's can be placed adjacent to and adjoining existing natural underwater structures, like coffee rock.

Arti's, for rec fishos could be clearly marked by use of a FAD ( for offshore arti's ).

Arti's put down must be made recreational fishing only areas. This would be purley to compensate the large amount of previously fished areas stripped from the rec fishos.

Ongoing and independent monitoring of arti's must be funded by government and all information gathered be made available to the public.

Arti's must be placed to accomodate offshore, bay / estuary and landbased anglers.

all IMO.



Cheers phill
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