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This groundbreaking report is fully comprehensive, referenced and contains a list of recommendations for early intervention. The report has been sent to the Premier, the Federal Minister for Sustainability, local candidates for the federal election and other politicians with interests in sustainability, jobs and tourism. Lead Author, Mr Cook accepts there is some confusion in the public arena with the reef fishery as this appears healthy and very good catches can be made “but there is a different lot of fish that live in our estuaries and inshore waters and these are the ones that have been hammered by the big netters – offshore netting in our inshore waters is unsustainable at current levels” said Mr Cook “We are losing our breeding schools of king salmon, queenfish, grunter, fingermark and now it’s almost impossible to catch a barramundi big enough to keep”.
Dear Premier, Migaloo being seen at Snapper Island for the third year running, where, as by now you will be well aware, they set very long, very strong gillnets up to 1.2 km long (water deeper than 20 m – plenty of that near Snapper Is. but ‘only’ 600m length in waters down to 2 m deep) for grey mackerel and shark, was reported in Port Moresby’s ‘National’ newspaper, last Monday.. Imagine my astonishment, in my hotel room in PNG, when I read that the city newspaper’s editor thought it was of interest for their local paper. Now, same week as the Douglas Region’s ‘Independent’ newspaper’s horrific picture and article about the netted dugong with its tail hacked off at Wangetti beach (Douglas region), more Snapper Island-related international news, this time in the worldwide distributed SCRFA Newsletter, about our call to have all grey mackerel fishing closed at Snapper Island for two years or until stocks recover and then be re-opened to commercial and recreational line fishing only. Concerned scientists worldwide are closely following this story as confirmed by my colleague of the 1990’s, SCRFA Director, Prof. Yvonne Sadovy, please see front page and page 7. I am sure we all hope we don’t see the two stories combined in one, next time round – Migaloo cut free from a 1.2km grey mackerel gillnet near Snapper Island, in the only place in the world where two World Heritage Areas meet? Hoping is not enough, what if, after being released, Migaloo washed ashore on the Daintree coast, too stressed out to make the journey south. Migaloo would take a bit longer to bury than all the dugong that have been coming ashore recently with net marks. Can you imagine the fury? This is a very real risk. Remember netting at this scale is new to the WHA, it is the result of uncontrolled effort creep as small boat fishermen moved to much larger boats and much longer gear in response to declining stocks. Imagine the speed at which the numerous photographs would spread the round world with the backdrop of our Iconic Daintree’s rugged rainforest coastline! It wouldn’t just be the Port Moresby ‘National’ that ran the story! Imagine the international outcry. It would be interesting to see what Japan would make of it. By then, you may have to agree it would be time to discretely drop that slogan, “Queensland, the Smart State”. I for one would hang my head in shame that I hadn’t been able to put the stupidity of this new scale of netting on the breeding grounds across to you and your advisers more convincingly in time to save not only Migaloo, but our rapidly diminishing dugong numbers (now estimated to be down to 3% of their 1960 numbers along the urban coast of the GBRMPA) and our even faster diminishing stocks of our iconic inshore fish species such as barramundi, king threadfin, fingermark, and the Douglas region’s grey mackerel. Please do be prepared for the release of our major paper, finally next week. This will be impossible for any legitimate fisheries manager to ignore. It’s been a long time coming but you will find it is worth the wait and you will realise why it has taken so long as it clearly explains the science behind the problem in easy to understand terms and is fully referenced. Clearly if your fisheries advisers refuse to accept the science, then we regret we shall have to seek political assistance from a party that is prepared to listen to the facts, understand the science, and the economics. We really hope this will not be necessary and that Migaloo is the cue you need tho put this problem out for competent independent review and development of sustainable fisheries management plans. Removal of fishing of spawning aggregations whether reef or estuarine is in the long term interest of the commercial fishing industry and would be a huge boost t o local tourism, fishing related enterprises and jobs in any communities and would give families the encouragement to take their kids fishing knowing they had a good chance of catching a decent sized fish. And we would probably all end up eating more local fish as stocks are given the chance to recover. Regards, David Cook Co-ordinator, Network for Sustainable Fishing
In the well chosen words of professional scientist, Tony Ayling, he would “be highly surprised if the dugong had not died in the nets of the same netboat” he had sailed past for the previous three days at Cape Kimberley/Snapper Island whilst Tony was surveying corals. Tony remarked he is highly surprised that this type of netting is allowed in such sensitive an area.
Dear Minister, As a concerned Australian I call on the minister to become aware of, and take urgent action, regarding the targeting of spawning aggregations of Grey Mackerel off the Northern Queensland coast. The Grey mackerel (Scomberomorus semifasciatus) is endemic to only a small area including the inshore waters of North Australia. Ignoring a local pro fisherman's reported 'gentlemans agreement' to not target the annual aggregations with nets, large boats from 'offshore' fisheries are targeting these schools with heavy winch haul net gear reportedly wiping out whole schools before they have the chance to spawn. I call for a moratorium to be called on the targeting of Grey Mackerel spawning aggregations by netting, effective immediately. Action must be taken to protect this species and others from indiscriminate or damaging fishing practices such as haul netting. The decimation of a species could happen in the shadow of the World Heritage listed Daintree region and it would be on your watch, Minister. You can learn more about the issue at the Fishers For Conservation site: http://www.ffc.org.au/Grey_Mackerel.html. Thankyou for your attention and action regarding this important issue. Sincerely,
06/04/10 Full version of article to be published in International newsletter
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