AFTER a below average snapper season in South Australia and ongoing concern regarding the management of spawning stocks of snapper in Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer Gulf, the South Australian Government has just released its new snapper management plan which comes into effect later this year.
Last year (2012) saw some changes to the usual month-long snapper ban, which included a two-week closed season extension for the commercial sector, with daily catch quotas implemented for this sector as well. The recreational sector was largely unaffected, apart from a reduced bag limit and a ban on catch and release of snapper for the initial 15 days of the season.
This year will see the two-week extension implemented across the board to cover both the recreational and commercial sectors. The snapper ban (which includes catch and release) will commence on 1st November and will run through until the 15th December.
In addition to the extended closed-season, there will be five spatial closures that will further protect key spawning aggregation sites. Four of these sites will be located in Spencer Gulf, and one in Gulf St. Vincent. These five sites are recognised aggregation grounds for spawning snapper, and as such are heavily targeted areas by both the commercial and recreational sectors once the season had traditionally opened.
See spatial closure zones map HERE.
These spatial closures will see a 4km radius placed around the known grounds that will further prevent any fishing activity through until 31st January 2014, and hence ‘closing’ these important breeding grounds for 3 months of the year. The spatial closures will better align with actual spawning seasons for snapper in our Gulfs.
These spatial grounds include the Illusion and Santa Anna, both of which are wide of Port Broughton (Spencer Gulf), Jurassic Park wide of Wallaroo (Spencer Gulf), the Estelle Star wide of Arno Bay (Spencer Gulf) and the barges wide of Ardrossan (Gulf St. Vincent).
The new snapper management plan has been welcomed by both the recreational and commercial sectors here in SA. Our spawning aggregations of snapper are easy targets at this time of year, and without the correct measures in place it’s too easy to exploit these vitally important breeding stocks.
