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Fishing power increases continue in Queensland's east coast trawl fishery, Australia

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O'Neill, M.F. and Leigh, G.M. (2007) Fishing power increases continue in Queensland's east coast trawl fishery, Australia. Fisheries Research, 85 (1–2). pp. 84-92.

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Article Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2006.12.006

Abstract

The Queensland east coast trawl fishery is by far the largest prawn and scallop otter trawl fleet in Australia in terms of number of vessels, with 504 vessels licensed to fish for species including tiger prawns, endeavour prawns, red spot king prawns, eastern king prawns and saucer scallops by the end of 2004. The vessel fleet has gradually upgraded characteristics such as engine power and use of propeller nozzles, quad nets, global positioning systems (GPS) and computer mapping software. These changes, together with the ever-changing profile of the fleet, were analysed by linear mixed models to quantify annual efficiency increases of an average vessel at catching prawns or scallops. The analyses included vessel characteristics (treated as fixed effects) and vessel identifier codes (treated as random effects). For the period from 1989 to 2004 the models estimated overall fishing power increases of 6% in the northern tiger, 6% in the northern endeavour, 12% in the southern tiger, 18% in the red spot king, 46% in the eastern king prawn and 15% in the saucer scallop sector. The results illustrate the importance of ongoing monitoring of vessel and fleet characteristics and the need to use this information to standardise catch rate indices used in stock assessment and management.

Item Type:Article
Additional Information:© Crown Copyright 2007.
Keywords:Fishing power; prawns; scallops; trawling; linear mixed models; Queensland.
Subjects:Aquaculture and Fisheries > Fisheries > Fishery research
Science > Statistics > Mathematical statistics
Aquaculture and Fisheries > Fisheries > Fishery technology
Live Archive:01 May 2012 02:11
Last Modified:03 Sep 2021 16:44

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