Help With My Science Homework

[Guest danielinbyron]

A very good point that gets brought up around new parks and restrictions is 'the lack of credible science.. From the pro point of view the data supplied would appear to have been ignored and or twisted to fit the green agenda... I don't quite understand the science but would like to relate my misgivings and doubts over what has been currently professed in my area..And from the point of view of someone who is trying to understand rather than that of one who professes to know..So please read this in context..

With the proposal of marine parks i walked in to my local mpa office and asked how this was going to effect mullet fishing from the beaches, in my local area here in northern rivers.. This is a bit of a hot topic as the area is laiden with spiritual top heavies and axe grindin greenies.

For decades i have watched the big white bully mullet swimming off the cape.. Four years ago i noticed less.. 3 years ago nearly none.

I was treated like a freak for asking... And told that mullet fishing is the :"most sustainable form of commercial fishing that there is .. You don't have to worry about the mullet mate.."

By an mpa officer who seemed like he'd had about enough..

I was humble in my approach.. And quickly realised this was not going to be a source of information. And you know who the hell am I anyway..

Thing is I'm not worried about the mullet... What concerns me is the idea that fish and migating fish are seen as seperate to there habitat..That is to say there seems to be two studies 1 of fish and one of habitat.But from a fishermans point of view the running mullet is the habitat.

As i understand it the mullet are hauled in mainly for there roe.Which means allot in stock down turn

My question is by simply measuring the mullet numbers as "the science". Which seems to make up the majority of the collected hard data..How are we getting any clue as to the knock on effect with other species.. By removing the vast majority of the slow moving 40 tonnes of fresh mullet in roe from an area that it has been in abundance regular as clockwork for thousands of years .. What happens to the fish that came here to eat it every year... I don't think they stop eating . so what do they eat instead...how does this effect there breading... do they breed less or kull offspring. etc. Does this get looked at and how can I find and source information along these line...Maybe i'll have to enrole at uni...But maybe someone here can point me in the right direction..

[Yoda]

You might try the DPI Fisheries website, there is a lot of info there.

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries

Edited September 21, 2006 by Yoda

[pjbink]

Danielinbyron,

Have a look at this link. The Commonwealth Dept. of Environment and Heritage gives an in depth review of NSW fisheries management with regard to sustainability and protection of the ecology. It makes a few recommendations for improvement (a lot of these are underway) but mainly gives the management of our states fisheries a thumbs up.

http://www.deh.gov.au/coasts/fisheries/nsw/index.html

Edited October 17, 2006 by billfisher

[Guest danielinbyron]

Thanx Billfisher i scanned throiugh the document, have to find a printer so i can read it without going blind. It really does feel like homework..

From what i read it seemed the only concerns re over fishing commercially targeted species seemed to be Gar and silver trevally. There is also an admission that not enough study has been done on the effect of the removal of biomass..ie the knock on effect of mullet removal to other species and its said to hope to have a better picture by 2008.

My understanding so far from this document and the others from dpi that Dan and Yoda put me on to , is that a study on the effects of stock removal on fish further up the food chain is quite a difficult undertaking..

Dan mentioned that there was a study done that correlated Tuna stocks with squid .

It was good to see it in writing that there concluded that there are no commercial practices that pose a threat any endangered species..

There has been no study like that done re the compliance of recreational fishermam to the rules and the impact on, the grey nurse for example. Its frustrating that the majority of poeple don't understand its possible to fish the grey nurse habitat without having any effect on the grey nurse at all.

My other concern is the bag size limit of Mulloway... As i've always suspected the average maturity to breeding size for Jew 65cm male and 70cm for females.. So the idea of a 45cm baglimit size is a little . It does seem to coincide however with the average size of professionally caught jew.

cheers d.

[Yoda]

Hey Daniel, it seems that you are predispositioned with Mulloway, mate they are really fun to catch but they are not the best on the tooth, any fisho would rather catch a big snapper for the table, I caught a lot of Mulloway from my boat in the 90's but the most fun catch I ever had was 27kg of Jew off the beach.

That beat every big Jew catch I'd had out of the boat by miles in the excitement factor. And I wil not take a Jew less than 90 cm.

[Guest danielinbyron]

Yeah Yoda.. 90cm seems to be a good size, from there the growth seems to go more proportionately toward width then length...and that would indicate some time as a mature breeder.. I'd like to get the figures on yearly growth etc...I think if for every fish we took they had had children all would be well. But i know i'm a bit of an idealist.

I guess i am concentrating on Jew as that is what i spend most of my time chasing and i would like to understand them better i have yet to crack 20kg{dinosaur}.I haven't caught a snapper with a knob on its head from the rocks yet .. But we get into them off the boat and yeah they're hard to beat for taste and texture....

Theres another fish that could do with an increase in its bag size in my opinion.