Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

The proposal is for the production of the sixth edition of the SAFS reports. SAFS is Australia's only coordinated, national-scale stock-status reporting framework, and as such is a critical driver of jurisdictional collaboration and strategic processes. The current application is to produce the SAFS reports in 2023 and address strategic issues outlined above. In order to ensure the continuation of SAFS beyond 2023, it is essential for jurisdictions to develop ownership of the reports and to embed SAFS processes in core business, and for efficiencies in production and report management to continue to progress. A parallel project to develop jurisdictional reporting services is also underway to assist jurisdictions develop their jurisdictional chapters. As documented in the independent audit of SAFS 2016 (FRDC project 2016-143), the process of compiling SAFS on a co-operative basis between FRDC, Australian government agencies and all fisheries jurisdictions has led to greater joint collaboration, as well as transfers of methodologies and processes, to deliver higher quality and more credible stock status reporting which can be accessed nationally and internationally, as well as assisting in policy decisions regarding changes to particular fisheries management arrangements and in research priorities. Primary drivers for National reporting of the SAFS include: (i) the State of the Environment Report 2011, i.e., ‘lack of a nationally integrated approach inhibits effective marine management’; (ii) a recommendation of the House of Representatives Inquiry into the Role of Science for Fisheries and Aquaculture (Netting the Benefits Report 2012), i.e., ‘producing national status report regularly’; (iii) the Australian Fisheries Management Forum national statement of intent, i.e. a key outcome of ‘Goal 1’ is the National Status of Australian Fish Stocks Report; (iv) the National Fishing and Aquaculture Strategy 2015–20, i.e., ‘Goal 1’ of this strategy will be partially measured by an increased number of fisheries assessed as environmentally sustainable in the Status of Australian Fish Stocks Reports (this includes reducing the number of stocks assessed as uncertain); (v) the FRDC RD&E Plan 2020–25, enabling strategy V (tracking and reporting on sustainability of fish stocks and performance of fisheries).

Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

The proposed work directly targets the opportunity
• to benchmark bycatch reduction devices (including escape vents) and strategies currently in use in the Queensland Crab Fishery,
• to trial refined escape vents for better (i) retention of legal crabs and exclusion of non-legal crabs and fish bycatch.

Recommended refinements to the regulation of escape vents in commercial mud crab pots will be provided to Fisheries Queensland by October/November 2022 for potential inclusion in the next round of regulatory amendments to the Crab Fishery.

More appropriately specified escape vents will produce better commercial outcomes (i.e., retention of legal crabs) and better ecological outcomes (e.g. exclusion of sub-legal crabs and finfish prone to entrapment in crab pots). Reports from crabbers indicate that some of the regulated escape vents allow legal crabs to escape, whilst the small escape vent (75 x 60 mm) reportedly allows very little bycatch to escape. A quantitative study that encompasses regional variation in mud crab morphometrics (i.e., carapace depth/height ~carapace width) would provide empirical data upon which management decisions can be objectively made.

Better documentation on marine turtle entrapment in crab pots (which is currently of limited public access) and gear modification to efficiently reduce or prevent marine turtle entrapment would be of benefit to threatened and endangered marine turtle populations of Queensland (in particular loggerhead turtles) and would contribute to the development of a risk mitigation strategy for the fishery.