The Queensland Government is conducting research into ways to reduce sharks taking fish from fishers.
Shark depredation is a big issue affecting Queensland fishers and a project being led by the government is looking at ways to mitigate the impact.
Stakeholders in Indigenous, commercial, recreational and charter fisheries will be consulted in a national online survey.
Shark depredation occurs when a fish caught in fishing apparatus is completely or partially consumed by a shark before it can be landed.
It can have negative socio-economic impacts on fishers in certain fishing sectors due to the loss of target catch and fishing gear.
Researchers from Queensland’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) are leading the project, which is co-funded by the Australian Government through the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC).
The project, which is running from March 2024 to October 2026, involves 3 phases:
Phase 1: The identification of potential solutions from measures currently or previously trialled around the world, utilising information from scientific papers, technical reports and fishers. Stakeholders in Indigenous, commercial, recreational and charter fisheries will be invited to participate in a national online survey to gather additional information about potentially suitable solutions.
Phase 2: A series of stakeholder workshops will be conducted at regional centres in Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales (the main states where shark depredation has been identified as a common issue).
The workshops will involve fishers, fishery managers, researchers, Indigenous representatives and other stakeholders, and explore the impacts of shark depredation on fishing, and what mitigation measures have been or are currently being tested or used.
The workshops will develop a robust experimental design for testing potential mitigation solutions in a quantitative and comparable way.
Phase 3: If promising mitigation solutions are identified, trials will be considered in different states and under different fishing scenarios to assess their effectiveness.
Other partners in this project include Western Australia’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the Northern Territory’s Department of Tourism, Industry and Trade, Bond University, James Cook University and Flinders University.
Queensland fishers have already been supporting the collection of data to try and quantify depredation through DAF’s Boat Ramp Survey program.
There are more options for fishers to submit their depredation data with the latest reporting enhancements available in the recently updated Qld Fishing 2.0 app, which is free to download from your favourite app store.
