snapper stock assessment

[Jeremy]

this has been put up by the DPI&F.
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/documents/...nt-summary.pdf

Few snippets.....

Snapper stock assessment summaryJune 2009

As part of the review of the state’s Rocky Reef Fishery, Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries (QPIF)—part of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation—has released the latest stock assessment report for snapper (Pagrus auratus).
The stock assessment report outlines the condition of the snapper stock in Queensland. This update is a summary of the assessment report.
Overall, the stock assessment indicates that snapper is overfished. This means that current fishing pressure is too high and not sustainable in the long term.

What did the stock assessment find?
The snapper stock assessment found that the annual harvest taken by the commercial and recreational sectors has grown from 100–200 tonnes in the early 20th century to 200–700 tonnes in recent years.

Recommendations were developed through a stakeholder group, which included representatives from the commercial, recreational, and charter fishing sectors; tackle industry; marketing sector; conservation groups and the community.

The recommendations needed to ensure that the average harvest of snapper over the next 10 years will be kept to 400 tonnes or less.
The group recognised that size and bag limits alone will not promote rebuilding of the snapper stock if fishing continues at its current levels.
After considering several different models, the direct regulation of harvest or fishing effort remained the only viable option.
It is predicted that with this option, a 400 tonne, fishery-wide quota should rebuild the snapper stock to at least 40% of unfished levels in 10 years.

[Jeremy]

this sounds alot like the work Barry was involved with and kept us updated on. Maybe he will comment also.

Jeremy

[tunaticer]

I wonder what regulations they will impose upon all fishers both rec and pro to reach the sustainable level they seek?

Personally I think that if they reduced bag limits for rec fishos to three fish it would tip the scales on fishing being totally unaffordable for anyone going outside for a fish.

I think they would probably have a much less reaction if they increased the min size limit to 50cm and set a max limit of around 90cm but still let people have thier 5 fish. Everybody likes to take home a reasonably good fish for the table and I know many people who would enjoy seeing 50cm fish for sale in the shops instead of barely legal.

The other avenue that will eventually have to become a reality is farming millions of large fingerlings for release into the wild or forcing all commercial fisheries to be a farmed concern. The big debate will be where will we sacrifice waterways for this to proceed? The green movement and the eco movement have scuttled every shot at farming within Moreton Bay. Maybe some of the greenzones should become farms??

[Pretzil]

Increased size to 50cm would be awesome, I would love to go out and continuely catch 48cm fish. i.e, when the size limit was 30, we only caught 28cm, now that its 35cm we mostly catch 33-34cm fish. Even the occaisional legal fish would be enough that you only need one.

[Lucky_Phill]

Thanks Jeremy.


I believe this outcome was produced with an " overseas " model and did not take into account, seasonal changes, particular environmental impacts, etc.

The science behind this has not been released or is open to the public, as far as I know.

I have said here before that a Bio-Mass is no way to relate current trends. Why ? Because no one knows what the original Bio-Mass was...........

It does seems strange to me that the take ( guess-ta-mate ) has increased from about 200 tons to 700 tons in fifty years.

It could be argued, and quite successfully, that Snapper stocks are great. If it was not so great, then how come the tonnage is way up , one would think that if a fishery was in ' decline " the catch would be in decline ??? Dunno. ??

Again, there is no way to determine current " bio-mass". ( except to use a guess-ta-mate of the original )

My argument again goes like thus.

Why not attempt to use " numbers " instead of bio-mass.

Bio-Mass relates to the ' tonnage ' of fish in the fishery.

Examples:-

A fishery has a bio-mass of 100,000 tons..... but has only 10,000 fish... small fishery. ( small numbers of big fish )

A fishery has a bio-mass of 100,000 tons, but has 200,000 fish.... sounds like a healthy fishery. ( Large numbers of small fish )

I have this feeling that a big surprize is on it's way for the snapper anglers of SEQ.

There has never been a better time to get involved in a tagging program on Snapper , than right now.

Cheers Phill
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[Lovey80]

Took the words right out of my mouth and it makes me very angry how they have set this up.

Plucked a figure out of the air of the 'unfished biomass'

Plucked a figure out of the air of the 'current biomass'

Decided that the 'current biomas' needs to be raised and implemented measures.

Numbers V's Tonnage is a HUGE issue. We should ALL want the take (tonnage) to be as BIG as possible while remaining sustinable. Now when I say BIG I don't nessessarily mean more fish.

As has been said in the past on this issue, as bag and sizes changed and smaller fish were required to be released anyone with a clue would have thought back then that if 'those' measures were going to have a positive impact the result would be of course that tonnage would be up!!!! If we are all now releasing larger and larger fish surely that is a good thing and there are more chances for fish to breed.

Other measures like protecting the small fish nurseries would have far greater impacts than these measures.

Im only getting started................. Im sure Bill will have some more clarifying comments


Cheers

Chris

[Lovey80]

Sorry,

Another point on this that I have stated before and I'll say it again.

At all these times in the past and now with this review, are those involved sitting down and the first thing that they do is agree on a "target" or "mission statement" or "end goal"????????

Maybe I am not making myself clear. I'll try to rephrase.

Back when Bag and size limmits were introduced it was very evident back then that a majority of our bread and butter fish were heading for collapse right? I mean for example, lets say they estimated the annual take back in say 1980+??? was 200tonne for Snapper, also at that time it was 'evident' that current practices were not sustainable (i don't need convincing that it was a well needed regulation here, even without science).

Ok so lets go back in time to the original days when rec fishing regulations were being formed (can anyone clarify when the first size and bags came in in QLD for me please). Lets just pluck 200tonne and Snapper as an example. So the good old boys (god bless them) decided that Snapper was to have a 23cm? size and a bag of 30?..... Im not that old, so if someone would like to add the original bag and size for Snapps I'd appreciate it. So Imagine your back in the day on one of the committees that came up with this figure and someone was to walk into the room after the decision was final and was to say " I can see the future, and these limmits will continue to be restricted to a point where not only will the small Snaps in Moreton bay have an average of 34cm and a bag of 5 for Re Anglers but even with these restrictions the 'Estimated' (pardon the pun) total take in SEQ will be somewhere between 500 and 700T annually"

Well if for what ever reason they didn't howel you out of the room for being a looney and actually believed what you said, dont you think the response would have been something allong the lines of "well lets hope so"?????

Am I making any sense here Ladies and Gents?

Lets disregard for a second that a computer came up with the current take and biomass. Lets assume a heap of research (like what I hope ECO will have in the future) came up with current take figures and some top notch science came up with the current Biomass and these figures are infact close to spot on............

Now lets hypothetically assume that the working group came up with a new regulation that restricted Rec take to 40cm and a bag of 4 (just for arguments sake). After 5 years of huge data collection, acurrate figures again and good science it was discovered that the combine take was now 1200Tonnes!

Do we now jump up and down again and ask for tighter regulation because the take is too much??? Or do we sit back and pat ourselves on the back because the measures we have put in place are WORKING?

Am I sounding like a mad man? Does anyone get my point? It may be just me but our whole direction of thinking on this is skewed in the wrong direction. It seems to be on the Zealot path of restricting the take instead of "how do we get more out of such a fantastic resourse"???

Wouldnt you be happy if in 2020, the bag was 3 Snapper but regularly you went our and got your bag on 8kg snapper? Under current thinking 'oh no thats 24kg of Snapper' back in 2009 they were catching 4 out of a possible 5 and it totalled 12kg' "lets bring in more restrictions!!!"

Maybe I have gone a little overboard here and over stated a few things but I hope you guys get my point.

My hat is off to those gents that put in all those hours to represent the Rec Angler at these meetings and my tirade isn't really aimed at you directly its more i think that our general attitude to sustainability is more than a little off.

Cheers

Chris

[dazza]

thanks for the heads up jeremy,

now let me look into my crystal ball,
i can see a tac of 400t for the whole fishery, rec bag of 3 fish,
time to grease the sphincters again, here comes another pineapple.

i am no statistician but 200-700 seems like a pretty wide range, could even argue it might be a guesstimate, heaven forbid the govt dosen't do that does it, opps i forgot the precautionary principle, that excuses the need for any science, not that they have used it in the past.
looks like we are another step closer to the golf clubs, and when my kids are terrorising people at the local shopping centre, don't blame me, i would love to take them fishing, ( i will be on the golf course)but have been regulated out of our recreational past time,
my rant for the day, geez this shits me
cheers
dazza

[Platitudinus]

Just from left field:
For the last couple of years most of the charter boats I fish on from the Gold Coast have measured and/or counted their snapper catch each trip. Records are maintained 'somewhere' and I understand that the charter skippers expect to be proportionally 'allocated' their share of a new quota based system, based on the magnitude or otherwise of their snapper catches over the last couple of years.

This would suggest that charter skippers targetting snapper will do well and those who have targeted other fish or not kept records of snapper catches will be allocated a lower quota - who really knows, but one takeaway could be that commercials and charters will know what they can do and the leisure fisho will be left until last as usual!

Plato

[dayoo]

The final meeting (I hope) of the RRFF (snapper) working group will be held on 11 September at Fisheries HQ in Ann Street, Brisbane.
I have not heard of any last minute changes to the recommendations previously posted on Ausfish affecting recreational anglers.

I understand that there has been some discussion on proposed changes to the snapper recording and reporting method for charter operators. Every time a snapper is caught the charter skipper has to phone Fisheries and report the size, sex and stomach contents ONLY JOKING

As far as I am aware there will be no change to snapper size and bag limits but there will be a TAC (Total Allowable Catch) per calendar year of 400 tonnes with recreation share being 260 tonnes. To monitor the TAC snapper catch cards will be introduced next year for those fishos wishing to participate in the Queensland snapper fishery.

Cheers
Barry

[punter]

I'd like to see a closed season say for the whole of July every year when they are breeding, surely that won't hurt us fisherman to much and allow the females to breed.

[Lovey80]

Barry Thanks for the update mate, are you able to shed any light on my ranting comments above? I.E. Targets?

Cheers

Chris

[dayoo]

Barry Thanks for the update mate, are you able to shed any light on my ranting comments above? I.E. Targets?

Cheers

Chris

Chris,

At the last meeting the working group had a video conference with a well respected NZ marine scientist who stressed that increasing the size limit and decreasing the bag limit on a fish species that is already regarded as vunerable only delays the decline of the species for a couple of years.

The recreational reps on the working group are not convinced that the stock assessment is accurate but we were willing to go along with the recommendations of the scientists. At the end of 2010 we will have a more accurate picture of the number of snapper taken by recreational anglers.

It is noted that the commercial take has increased approx. 300% since 2002 due to investment warnings and the movement of commercial operators from Coral Reef fin species to Rocky Reef fin species. One commercial operator has three large boats and accounts for over 25% of the commercial snapper catch.

It may be that Fisheries will have to better manage and rationalise the quantity of snapper taken by the commercial sector in SEQ.

The next snapper stock assessment after 2010 will have more accurate catch figures from which we can get a better picture on the best way to manage the SEQ snapper fishery.

Cheers
Barry

[alleycat]

This is a page on snapper from a book published by state govt on rec fishing printed in 1959, it states about snapper, " once plentifull in moreton bay it is now almost entirely confined to offshore reefs", this would point out that even in 1959 dramatic declines were apparent in bay snapper stocks, to me it very clear from personal experience that we need much more in the way of artificial reefs, fish stocking, and commercial restraint, also a curb in prawning in the bay which hammers the small squire, i would much rather be able to go out and catch half a dozen 60cm plus snapper on light gear and take just 1 or 2 home than going out catching a heap of just legals or under as is often the case now...

[Black_Rat]

"at 3 pounds a squire qualifys to be called a snapper"

This answers the old age question when does a squire become a snapper