There are concerns that poor water quality may be having an affect on the health of post-capture rock lobsters. This project addresses this in three ways:

1. Determining the optimal level of ammonia in holding and transport systems. This will contribute to the understanding of optimal system design.

2. Understanding the mechanism of ammonia toxicity. This will enable industry to develop methods to counteract the harmful effects.

3. Providing information to the rock lobster industry in the appropriate form to ensure uptake of the results of research on optimising water quality, specifically in the area of oxygen and ammonia.

There is a need to increase the percentage of rock lobsters arriving at the factory in a condition suitable for live export. This then provides industry with a greater choice in selling live or in some other form, according to market demand and prices. It is also now clear that by increasing the number suitable for export it provides lobsters with higher flesh recovery rates and hence increased profit levels.

A further development that has occurred in recent years is long term holding of the lobsters, prior to sale. Various lengths of time are involved from weeks to months in seeking the best price in the market or possibly changing the size of the lobsters to the best size/price for the market. Clearly a knowledge of the causes of stress and their eleviation is important as the lobsters held for these periods may no longer be in the best condition for export.

Other areas of concern to industry with post-harvest lobsters have also been identified. The major one is leg loss, which can occur both at time of capture, in holding tanks, or even during packing for export. It renders the lobsters unsuitable for live export and is a major loss of revenue to the industry. Other industry problems with post-harvest rock lobster will be discussed with industry and prioritised by the Steering Committee.

During the last three years considerable progress has been made in understanding the physiology of stress and the effests that post-harvest handling has on lobsters. This has not lead to instantaneous, straight forward, solutions. However, it has clarified the scientific problems which need to be solved, and when the final reports are received during the latter half of 2000, will lead to improvements to the Code of Conduct for handling lobsters after capture and during transport.

The three new projects supported by the Subprogram have arisen from preliminary discussion of the results of recent research conducted under this Subprogram, and are aimed at building on this research output.

Other areas of research in the Post-harvest area still need to be addressed. At the International Lobster Congress in Adelaide in 1999, an Industry speaker produced a list of 9 areas of Industry need in the Post-Harvest area. These included Best-practise Storage Techniques, reductions in leg loss, moult cycle and relationship to survivability in tanks, transport, investigation of "problem Periods' to determine causes of problems. These were all western rock lobster problems and we have yet to properly examine the Industry problems in the southern rock lobster. This will be a major focus of the new Subprogram. The conslusions will then be built into the Strategic Plan for the Subprogram.

There is some degree of overlap (at least in areas of interest) between this subprogram and the Enhancement and Aquaculture subprogram. In order to prevent duplication and to ensure maximum use of staff and facilities the two subprogram leaders will be members of each others Steering Committee.

Globally risk assessment is becoming an important tool, used by industry and regulatory bodies. During the past decade a number of food safety risk assessments have been carried out including:
1994 Canada Listeria monocytogenes in pasteurised milk
1996 Canada various products
1997 USA Salmonella enteritidis in pasteurised eggs
1998 USA Ecoli O157:H7 in hamburger meat
1999 Australian dairy industry entire product range
1999 Australian meat industry various products

As HACCP based plans become more widely introduced it is becoming clear that there are serious limitations to applying HACCP in contexts where risk assessment has not been carried out.

The proposed seafood food safety risk assessment will separate the important few risks, from the many, by ranking products, processes and markets according to risk . Consequent risk communication followed by risk management actions will assist high risk sectors control their exposures.

The risk assessment and its outputs will enable the seafood industry and regulators to ensure that the food safety programs they develop and implement are soundly based on an assessment of risks in their business.

Recent successful litigation concerning food safety has further emphasised the importance of ensuring that due diligence has been followed in relation to managing food safety risks and that it is not enough to do what is required (by government) but to do what is necessary based on best available knowledge.

Phase 1 of the risk assessment has been completed. This project will complete phase 2 of the risk assessment and will produce a number of products which will help ensure that the seafood industry is operating within a soundly based food safety risk framework. One which is seen as ensuring credible food safety practices by industry, governments and importantly consumers.

This work is also essential as an input to the food safety standards for the seafood industry currently being developed by Seafood Services Australia.

There is already considerable Australian research commitment to the production of hatchery feeds and to the development of new feeds. Many research insitutions have a proven track record in development of production technology, but with the expansion of aquaculture in Australia there is a clearly defined need to improve coordination between the research organisations in the area of fish larvae feeds, and to identify opportunities and priorities for future research.

In October 99 McKinnon acted on advice from QFIRAC and FRDC, and canvassed support for a live feeds workshop. All respondents indicated support, but indicated that such a workshop should encompass all aspects of hatchery feeds research. We propose that the workshop will focus on hatchery feeds for finfish, and will aim to summarise the current status of research within Australia, identify gaps in research effort, and prioritise research needed.

ASIC needs to instigate a proper process to collate a national Commercial Fishing Industry response to the NMSC proposals to change the USL Code and input into the new National Marine Safety Strategy.

Commercial Fishing Industry representatives from each State/Territory need to conduct a series of workshops to formulate a national response to the above.

Timelines for submissions to NMSC need to be reconsidered to allow industry to meet, consider and form a national Commercial Fishing Industry response to the changes and implications listed in the preceeding Background paragraph. This matter has been taken up with NMSC.