Improving and promoting fish-trawl selectivity in the Commonwealth Trawl Sector (CTS) and Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector (GABTS) of the Southern and Eastern Shark and Scalefish Fishery (SESSF)
Fish-trawl fisheries are important throughout southeastern and southern Australia, with >35 species targeted in different sectors providing ~>15 000 mt valued at >$60 million p.a. Like all trawl fisheries around the world there are ongoing efforts to reduce non-target catches including juveniles of the targeted species, species sought in other commercial and recreational fisheries and endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species. As part of attempts at improving selection and in response to other research operators have investigated simple modifications to gears (including changes to mesh size and orientation at strategic locations), and fishing operations (trawl monitoring equipment to facilitate directed targeting) with reports of variable effectiveness in reducing bycatches (including ETP species) while maintaining target catches.
This investment will maintain progress towards developing innovative, high-priority technological modifications to fish trawls that mitigate sustainability issues while maintaining target catches at existing levels. Equally important, ratified designs will be tested across fleets to encourage wide-scale voluntary adoption and ongoing exploration of appropriate best-practice technologies.
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