Estimated Catch: 16,032 tonnes

Stock Status of Target Species

Source: Patterson, H, Williams, A, Woodhams, J and Curtotti, R 2019, Fishery status reports 2019, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, Canberra. CC BY 4.0.

MANAGEMENT PLANS/ARRANGEMENTS

The Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery continues to be managed in accordance with the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery Management Plan 2003.The fishery has seven sectors that are managed through a combination of input and output controls including limited entry, catch limits, spatial closures, size limits and catch-and-effort triggers that are used to initiate further analysis and assessment. The Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery sectors include:

• Commonwealth South East Trawl Sector
• East Coast Deepwater Trawl Sector
• Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector
• Scalefish Hook Sector*
• Shark Hook Sector*
• Shark Gillnet Sector*
• Trap Sector*

* collectively called the Gillnet Hook and Trap Sector

ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE

Performance – status of fish stocks

The table above shows that there are several Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery stocks that are considered to be overfished. All of these stocks overlap jurisdictional boundaries, meaning they are caught in a combination of commonwealth and state fisheries, complicating management. Commonwealth rebuilding strategies are in place for blue warehou, eastern gemfish, redfish, school shark and orange roughy. Each of these strategies implement incidental total allowable catches and management arrangements to prevent targeting and promote recovery of the stock to the limit reference point. AFMA continues to work with state agencies to pursue complementary arrangements in overlapping fisheries.

Stock assessments were updated in 2018 for a number of Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery species. Assessments for blue grenadier, John dory, jackass morwong west and pink ling west estimated the current biomass, or a proxy thereof, is above the target reference point. Assessments for blue-eye trevalla, deepwater shark east, deepwater shark west, jackass morwong east, mirror dory, pink ling east and silver warehou showed that the current biomass, or a proxy thereof, is between the limit reference point and the target reference point. For species assessed as being between the limit and target reference points, catches are set at a level that will allow the stock to recover to the target.

While they were assessed in 2018 as being between the catch per unit effort limit and target reference point, eastern and western stocks of deepwater shark have changed from ‘not subject to overfishing' in 2017 to ‘uncertain' with respect to fishing mortality in the 2018 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Status Reports. Deepwater shark is a multi-species stock and is becoming increasingly difficult to assess due to the impact of large closed areas and uncertainty in historical catch and discard information, including species composition. Total catch in the east (58.2 tonnes), which includes reported landings and estimates of discards, exceeded the recommended biological catch (9 tonnes) in 2018. While a substantial portion of the species distribution exists inside closures, and catches in the west remain below the western recommended biological catch, there is no reliable estimate of biomass, which makes a comparison of total catch against an recommended biological catch difficult for both stocks.

Performance – economic returns

For the purposes of reporting economic key performance indicators, AFMA considers its key commercial stocks as the top 30 by value. In the 2018-19 season, 11 of the top 30 species were Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery quota species: bight redfish, blue eye trevalla, blue grenadier, deepwater flathead, eastern school whiting, gummy shark, orange roughy eastern, pink ling east, pink ling west, school shark and tiger flathead. All of these species except school shark, which is a rebuilding species, have targets based on maximum economic yield.

Three of those species, deepwater flathead, eastern school whiting and tiger flathead are assessed as being ‘on target' or within 20 per cent of their target biomass on average over the past five years. Three stocks – blue-eye trevalla, orange roughy east and pink ling east – while between the limit reference point and target reference point, are assessed as requiring rebuilding. Two stocks are assessed as being above their target biomass – western pink ling and blue grenadier.

Fisheries Officer Dylan Maskey – Domestic Compliance – Quota species weight verification Pink Ling Photo courtesy Alex Illes AFMA Media Library

Performance – reliability of information

Discard reporting by shark gillnet, shark hook and scalefish hook vessels continued to be monitored in 2018-19 by comparing logbook reported discards against electronic monitoring reviews. While reporting by fishers is improving, it is better for quota species than bycatch species.

A trial is currently underway to better understand the ability of electronic monitoring to provide information on catch and effort data in the Commonwealth Trawl Sector. This will be considered alongside a suite of alternative data collection and monitoring options to find the most cost-effective approach for the fishery.

Performance – status of bycatch

In 2018 we undertook a review of the Gillnet Dolphin Mitigation Strategy that was originally introduced in May 2017. This review was conducted in consultation with the Commonwealth Marine Mammal Working Group, the South East Management Advisory Committee and the public. This review led to several changes to improve the implementation of the strategy, including facilitating better use of electronic monitoring footage and management measures to ensure that low effort operators are not unduly penalised for low levels of interactions. The most significant change was the adoption of a spatial management measure to encourage operators to move away from a high-risk area off South Australia should a significant number of interactions occur.

In addition to offal retention requirements in high risk areas to be introduced from 1 November 2019, AFMA are currently working with industry to develop mitigation options to further reduce seabird interactions with otter board trawl vessels. Industry are also undertaking a project to develop a seal mitigation device for otter board trawl vessels which will investigate the use of a device to close the trawl net and stop the ingress of seals when the net is being hauled.

EXTERNAL REVIEWS

A workshop was held in February 2019 to provide advice on implementing recommendations from recent strategic research projects relevant to the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery, in particular:

• SESSF Monitoring and Assessment – Strategic Review (FRDC 2014-203) (SMARP)
• SESSF Declining Indicators (FRDC 2016-146).

An implementation plan has been developed to prioritise the recommendations which include approaches for future monitoring and assessment options and developing additional or alternative indicators for use in future assessments and harvest strategies.

A key component of this is the development of a new Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery harvest strategy (FRDC 2018-021) which will consider alternative approaches to multi-species harvest strategies, including monitoring and assessment options identified in the SMARP project.