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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 60(6)

Sustainability assessment for fishing effects (SAFE) on highly diverse and data-limited fish bycatch in a tropical prawn trawl fishery

Shijie Zhou A B , Shane P. Griffiths A and Margaret Miller A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, PO Box 120, Cleveland, Qld 4163, Australia.

B Corresponding author. Email: shijie.zhou@csiro.au

Marine and Freshwater Research 60(6) 563-570 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF08207
Submitted: 15 July 2008  Accepted: 11 January 2009   Published: 19 June 2009

Abstract

A new sustainability assessment for fishing effects (SAFE) method was used to assess the biological sustainability of 456 teleost bycatch species in Australia’s Northern Prawn Fishery. This method can quantify the effects of fishing on sustainability for large numbers of species with limited data. The fishing mortality rate of each species based on its spatial distribution (estimated from detection/non-detection data) and the catch rate based on fishery-dependent or fishery-independent data were estimated. The sustainability of each species was assessed by two biological reference points approximated from life-history parameters. The point estimates indicated that only two species (but 21 when uncertainty was included) had estimated fishing mortality rates greater than a fishing mortality rate corresponding to the maximum sustainable yield. These two species also had their upper 95% confidence intervals (but not their point estimates) greater than their minimum unsustainable fishing mortality rates. The fact that large numbers of species are sustainable can be attributed mainly to their wide distributions in unfished areas, low catch rates within fished areas and short life spans (high biological productivity). The present study demonstrates how SAFE may be a cost-effective quantitative assessment method to support ecosystem-based fishery management.

Additional keywords: ecological risk, non-target, quantitative, stock assessment, surplus production.


Acknowledgements

We thank the Northern Territory Museum, Julie Lloyd from the Northern Territory Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, the Queensland Museum, the Australian Museum and the data custodians of several CSIRO projects, who contributed greatly to the distribution data used in our model. Several colleagues made helpful comments or reviews of drafts of this paper including David Brewer, Don Heales, Alistair Hobday, Petra Kuhnert, Roland Pitcher, Nick Ellis, Cathy Dichmont, Tony Smith, Ilona Stobutzki and Chris Wilcox. We are very grateful to Dr James Scandol for his thorough review of the paper and valuable comments. This work was funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.


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Zhou, S. , and Griffiths, S. P. (2008). Sustainability Assessment for Fishing Effects (SAFE): an application to elasmobranch bycatch in an Australian trawl fishery. Fisheries Research 91, 56–68.
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