FISHING NEWS
32 | fishingworld.com.au | February 2015
THE WA Government may be set to
more than halve the bag limit for the
state’s most popular recreational
fishing species, the Australian herring.
It has been reported that WA’s
Fisheries Department has issued
warnings that herring stocks are in
serious decline.
Almost a year after a draft study of
“near-shore” species by WA’s Fisheries
department found herring numbers
had plummeted, it is understood
Fisheries Minister Ken Baston is
preparing to cut catches. At present,
anglers are allowed to take up to 30
herring a day but the Government is
considering a new bag limit of less
than 15 to ease pressure on stocks.
According to information on the
species via the WA Fisheries website,
the Australian herring was named
due to a superficial resemblance to
the herring of the northern
hemisphere, but is not related.
Australian herring can grow to 41cm
in length but most are caught at about
20-25 cm.An endemic Australian species, the
Australian herring actually belongs to
the perch family of which the
Australian salmon (Arripis truttaceus)
also belongs and in its juvenile stage,
can be easily confused with adult
herring (Arripis georgianus).IT’S legal for recreational fishers to use
set nets in certain parts of WA at
certain times of the year, but nets
should be attended. A “FishWatch”
hotline tip off recently allowed Fisheries
officers to locate a 60-metre long
unattended net found adrift in
Mandurah’s Peel-Harvey Inlet and
release the fish that remained alive. The
net’s f loats weren’t stamped with a gear
identification number as required and ithad been set during the three month
seasonal closure for net fishing, aimed
at protecting cobbler during their
breeding season. “Ghost nets” like this
can have serious environmental
consequences and fisheries officers have
reinforced the requirements of buying a
netting licence, marking f loats with the
allocated number and following the
rules regarding seasonal closures.
By John NewberyHerring bag limit to be halved?
Discarded nets kill
Caption xxxxx
xxxxx xxxxxxx xxSNIPPETS
QLD FISH
HABITAT ZONES
The Queensland
Government is
proposing to declare
fish habitat areas
over the Calliope
River at Gladstone,
Leeke’s Creek at
Great Keppel Island
and Balaclava Island,
an extension of the
Fitzroy River area.
The declared areas
protect against
physical disturbance
from coastal
development but still
allow fishing. The
Capricorn
Conservation Council
says the proposal to
declare more fish
habitat areas in
central Queensland
is well overdue and
notes that the
Gladstone Ports
Corporation still has
a master plan for
very major dredging
and port facilities.
By John NewberyMARY RIVER
OPEN YEAR-
ROUND
THE Northern
Territory’s Minister
for Primary Industry
and Fisheries,
Willem Westra van
Holthe, has
announced that the
Mary River will be
open for year-round
barramundi fishing.
The Mary River was
previously closed to
barramundi fishing
each year from
October 1 to
February 1.➁
➂
Albacore
protection
measures
THE latest tuna species to be
identified as being in trouble has
been granted a certain level of
protection by the Pacific Island
nations which constitute the Pacific
Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA). Over
the past 10 years increasing numbers
of new boats have entered the
albacore industry, depleted stocks
and driven many Pacific island tuna
businesses to the wall. The
short-term returns provided to the
smaller cash-strapped member states
were in the past hard to resist, but all
now realise action is need to preserve
southern Pacific albacore stocks. The
boats include large numbers of
heavily subsidised Chinese vessels
and operators from Japan and South
Korea. FFA countries, including
Australia and New Zealand, have
signed up to the Tokelau
Arrangement, which will apply to
the 200-mile economic zones of each
of the member nations and set
annual catch limits over millions of
square kilometres of ocean from the
Cook Islands in the east to the
Solomon Islands in the west.
By John NewberyIMAGE: JAMIE CRAWFORD