Overseas experience demonstrates how diseases reduce profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of aquatic animal industries (for references see ATTACHMENT 6). Despite a rapid and continuous expansion in aquaculture, Australia has not experienced significant disease emergencies in farmed aquatic animal populations. However, pilchard mortality events in 1995 and 1998 have provided warning signals and demonstrated the need to increase our capability to respond to – and preferably prevent – aquatic animal disease outbreaks.

Since 1992, the FRDC as the biggest research investor has contributed more than $11million to over fifty projects related to aquatic animal health. Due to project diversity and cross-linkages to several FRDC Programs and existing Subprograms, well-facilitated project management is a fundamental requirement to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in delivering and extending results and would be facilitated by a dedicated Subprogram with its leader and supporting infrastructure.

With the development of a strategic R&D plan for aquatic animal health as a highest priority task, the Subprogram would contribute to preventing duplication of research, increase cooperation amongst researchers and thus achieve one of AQUAPLAN’s key priority objectives. It would thus underpin stability in aquatic animal health research and provide a greater level of service to research output beneficiaries.

The FRDC Subprogram would not only manage traditional R&D projects, but also develop Program Activity Plans and deliver projects under an AFFA/FRDC Agreement ([…] for the delivery of Program Activities under the Building of a National Approach to Animal and Plant Health program). FRDC will be advised by FHMC’s AQUAPLAN Business Group (ABG), chaired by ASIC and NAC, fulfilling the role of the Subprogram steering committee. Thus, the national approach can be developed in tandem to the R&D strategy, and guaranteeing links among the two. Significant components of the AQUAPLAN Workplan could be achieved.

The need for research to improve the management of northern shark fisheries is clearly recognised at State/Territory, national (NAFM) and international (Traffic Oceania, FAO) levels. The sustainability of shark species is also a priority issue with stakeholders. The 1998, 1999 and 2000 Northern Australia Fisheries Management (NAFM) Workshop (QLD, NT, WA and the Commonwealth) identified research into elasmobranches as high priority. The Northern Shark Stock Assessment Review workshop (QLD, NT, WA and the Commonwealth), Broome 2000, identified the lack of species identification in the catch of NT and Qld as a major concern, as well as the lack of uniformity in reporting shark catch by the various logbook programs. The national Shark Advisory Group in November 2000 identified:
- a general lack of species identification and quantification of shark taken in non-target shark fisheries;
- a lack of consistent and accurate data collection and reporting of shark catches across all fisheries and jurisdictions;
- need for a minimum standard level of data collection and shark reporting across all fisheries and jurisdictions;
- shark finning (this activity is currently banned in the tuna fisheries and in the States of NSW, Victoria and WA);
as significant issues in regard to the take of shark in Australian waters.

From a national and regional perspective the need for the proposed study has been prioritised by the above forums and by their constituent peak stakeholder groups. The proposal directly addresses the R&D Priorities of QFIRAC, (1.2 Develop and improve the quality of catch/effort data collection systems, 1.3 Undertake stock assessments of fisheries resources, 2.2 Quantify the unintentional effects of fishing on fish stocks) and those of FRDC (Natural resource sustainability: Effects of fishing activities on fish and their ecosystems). The current proposal is for the first stage of a more comprehensive study and will focus on workshopping the issues with stakeholders in each state and short pilot studies in WA, NT and Qld to test methods and gain critical preliminary data.

Abalone stocks are vulnerable to localized depletion, followed by fishery collapse. In Australia, assessments of abalone fisheries have been written in all abalone-producing states. However, except in NSW (Worthington, 1998), the basis for those stock assessments is generally an anecdotal interpretation of un-standardized commercial catch-effort data and, sometimes, information on the size-composition of the catch. This information is often combined, in an informal way, with research data to give an impression of the status of the stocks. Performance indicators used do not tend to be biologically based. Most importantly, the sustainability of current catch levels is not known with any confidence. Meeting the guidelines from Environment Australia with regard to sustainability of fisheries will require a more formal assessment for such an important fishery.

The development of FRDC project 1999/116, to develop a National Abalone Model, is an attempt to answer the obvious need for a valid model. Currently, New South Wales is the only state where a stock assessment model is being used as the basis for fishery management decisions in an abalone fishery. In Tasmania, The inputs currently available to the model being developed include fishery-dependent catch-effort data, fishery-dependent length-frequency data, research length-frequency data, and estimates of biological parameters. The crucial data, missing from the inputs to the model, is a fishery-independent index of relative abundance. The survey techniques used in NSW and in Victoria have been found incapable of producing estimates with sufficient
precision under Tasmanian conditions. There is thus a need to develop an optimum combination of fishery independent indices of abundance that will have application in the full range of Tasmanian abalone habitats. In addition, Tasmania's raw catch-effort data must be standardized prior to its use in a formal assessment model because of the high variability in catch rates between divers, areas, season, and other factors.

Specifically this project will:
(1) better determine the relationship between catch-rate and abundance. This is needed for realistic standardisation of catch and effort statistics;
(2) improve our understanding of the differences between commercial size-composition data and the actual size composition of the legal size abalone left after fishing (selectivity v availability). Such data are a key ingredient of stock assessment models;
(3) assess the accuracy of diver logbook data. This will help ensure that the data requested via industry logbooks focuses on the most appropriate questions and will assist with appropriate standardisation.

The information gained will underpin the development of credible, realistic fisheries models for abalone, which will consequently improve the confidence with which abalone fisheries are managed. Increased confidence in fisheries management decisions will have measurable economic benefits.

Across all southern states there is a strategic need for research to improve assessment of the stocks, improve advice on management alternatives, and provide forecasts with reduced uncertainty of future stock size and,by implication, potential catches (see attached figure 1). This proposal addresses this need.

In all states current management objectives include rebuilding of the stocks. Current legal sized biomass is principally based on recent recruits to the fishery. As stocks rebuild, the biomass will contain a greater proportion of lobsters that had recruited prior to the last season. As these lobsters will have increased in size since recruiting, the average weight of the legal sized biomass will have increased. Thus bigger stocks will certainly provide greater yields from each recruit and therefore lead to greater productivity. As the number of eggs that a female lobster broods is a cubic relationship to her size, a small increase in size will lead to a much larger increase in the number of eggs produced. Thus large gains may also be possible through the feedback from greater egg production from the rebuilding legal sized biomass. The potential for more eggs to lead to higher recruitment to the fishery will be strongly dependent on the rates of growth and mortality of the pre-recruit stages. Therefore there is a need to acquire this information to enable managers to take egg production into account when setting management measures.

Tasmania is about to start a puerulus harvesting program as part of an attempt to establish a rock lobster aquaculture industry in the state. Part of this activity is a return of a proportion of the animals to the wild after a period in the laboratory, estimated to be equal or in excess of those that would have survived over a similar period in the wild. This aims to ensure neutrality of puerulus harvest. The return is currently based on "guesstimates" of mortality. The results of this study will therefore have a significant application in this related work.

The high value of rock lobster fisheries in southern Australia means that even small increases in the catch may have substantial benefits. A 5% improvement might result in a $10 million increase in landed value with flow on benefits to southeastern Australian rural coastal communities. Concern has been voiced that increases in production may be offset by lower prices due to supply outstripping demand. However, price increases during the past decade suggest that demand is growing more rapidly than supply. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that higher production (without increased effort) in southern Australia will have a positive impact on the economy.

Specifically the ongoing management and development of WA commercial and recreational crab fishing requires:
1. A fishery independent method to assess annual variation in pre-fishery recruitment strengths to enable variations in catch data due to effort or technology changes to be distinguished from environmental variations in recruit survival. This will also enable the strength of the recruitment to be predicted in advance, which may allow for a pro-active management approach to be adopted.
2. Improved methodologies for estimating stock abundance and size from newly surveyed areas using developmental fishing (e.g. Shark Bay Developmental fishery), to enable more rapid assessment and allocation of fishing areas.
3. The validation of the allocation model adopted in Cockburn Sound and Geographe Bay, based on differential size limits and commercial effort control, and the associated development of low cost recreational catch monitoring systems to assess ongoing variations to catch shares. These data complement the more detailed data collected from creel surveys as it focuses on the key recruitment periods. An allocation model that allocates the catch between the commercial and recreational sectors, 5/8:3/8 respectively, is currently in place for Cockburn Sound. Therefore it is important that a cost effective annual monitoring program is available to confirm its success.
4. To collect baseline data on currently unfished stocks of blue swimmer crabs to allow comparisons between ongoing developmental fisheries and established fisheries. This provides an opportunity to collect data on the fishery from commencement and to examine any changes caused by fishing pressure.
5. An assessment of the applicability of the SA model for blue swimmer crabs to WA commercial catch data from longstanding fishing such as is available for Cockburn Sound is required, to enable the ongoing stock assessment of the WA blue swimmer crab fisheries for annual ESD reporting.
6. The development of a dedicated blue swimmer crab database to record ongoing commercial catches and data from exploratory fishing permitted during the life of the project.