CREDIT where credit’s due. A NSW DPI spokesperson responded very quickly with answers to the questions I posed about how they decided to allocate additional Australian salmon to commercial operators north of Barrenjoey, but are we happy now? No way.
Both studies are available on the DPI website in the “research” but not the “commercial fishing” area, which seems odd, but no matter, they are there. The study referenced in question 1 is a very comprehensive document, published in March 2011. It’s really useful, despite a triple irony. It was published by Industry & Investment NSW which the incoming government took Fisheries out of and broke up; it was produced at the Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre of Excellence, which the new government is closing; and it was co-funded by the NSW Recreational Saltwater Fishing Trust Expenditure Committee, that is with our licence fees.
I can’t attempt to summarise a 240 page study here. If you’re interested, go online and download it. Some pertinent facts though:
1. No punches are pulled about there being “a very large export market possible” for Australian salmon, most likely to China, as Martin Salter noted in his blog.
2. There are currently “historically high catch levels”.
3. The salmon fishery is essentially a high-volume, low market price, demand-driven activity; essentially operators take more when there’s an opportunity to sell more, which explains the peaks and troughs in catches from about 200 to about 1,500 tonnes over the last 65 years or so.
4. Peaks may coincide with reduced rec catches; there’s a really interesting quote from Athel D’Ombrain lamenting the loss of salmon in the northern part of NSW in the mid 1950s in one of the appendices … which coincided with peak historical commercial catches at the levels we’re now seeing.
5. Northern Australian salmon are older and faster growing, with 7 years + fish being most abundant: in the south, it’s 4-6 year old fish.
The response to question 2 resolved some of our confusion over existing tonnages and increases. We “missed” the fact that in 2006 the sportfish-only status changed. The “rules” established in 2001 allowed operators a 100kg per day by-catch. From 2006, they were allowed to take up to a collective 129 tonnes per year for their “own use”, whatever that comprises, but can’t be on-sold. So yes, the increase to 224 tonnes is only about 100 tonnes, but all of it can now be sold.
The 392 page 2008/09 fisheries status report referenced in the response to questions 3 and 4 is also a mine of information on stock status and contemporary harvest rates for a whole range of species. It would be enhanced by some detailed information on how many trigger point reviews there have been since the FMSs were completed, for instance Australian salmon would have triggered reviews through increases, luderick through decreases.
Now to question 5. The response really misses the point. We don’t care about “more efficient and equitable access to bait” when that further erodes a sportfish-only declaration and may impact numbers available to our sector, as appears to have occurred in the 1950’s. Just because numbers are up doesn’t mean they should be further exploited commercially, in our view. Can you imagine the NT government letting the barra be retargeted by commercials in rec-only areas because numbers have increased in the years following area closures?
And the poor old luderick. The status report says 08/09 catches are the lowest on record and show a “slowly declining trend over the past decade”, from about 800 tonnes in 88/89 to about 300 tonnes in 08/09. That maybe partially due to the effects of RFHs, I guess. The report also says “a small number of luderick are salted and used for bait in the commercial rock lobster fishery”, but doesn’t put a figure on it, so we’d question the reliability of the “bait substitution’ argument.
