In the mid to late 1980s NORMAC began to suspect that tiger prawn spawning stocks in the NPF may have been reduced by fishing to levels that reduced recruitment to the fishery. A vessel buy-back scheme and other effort reductions were introduced to reverse this trend but, by the mid-1990s, the desired recovery of tiger prawns had not occurred. To understand the reasons for this, and with the support of FRDC, CSIRO began a 3-year research project in 1995 to improve our understanding of the relationship between the spawning stock and recruitment in the tiger prawn fishery. This project has examined data from the logbook system, collected new information from skippers on where they fish and their patterns of fishing, and developed models to assess the numbers of recruits and spawners, and hence the status of the tiger prawn stocks.

This project has relied heavily on data gathered by the NPF fleet.  Some of the data are provided to AFMA as a condition of the NPF permit (logbook data), but other data were provided to us voluntarily by fishers (GPS plotter disks with maps of the fishing grounds and the fishers’ trawl tracks).  Several fishers also took us on board their vessels to collect information on try net catches and plotter tracks. We have shown how valuable these data are and how much there is to be gained by enlisting the cooperation of the fleet.