East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery Ecological Risk Assessment Species of Conservation Concern

Abstract

The Queensland Ecological Risk Assessment Guideline (the Guideline) was released in March 2018 as part of the Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017–2027. This Guideline provides an overview of strategy being employed to develop Ecological Risk Assessments (ERAs) for Queensland’s fisheries. The Guideline describes a four-stage framework consisting of a Scoping Study; a Level 1, whole of fishery qualitative assessment; a Level 2, species-specific semi-quantitative or low-data quantitative assessment and; a Level 3 quantitative assessment (if applicable).

A Scoping Study for the East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (ECOTF) was released in 2023 (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, 2023). Three comprehensive regional ERAs on the risk posed to trawl bycatch species negated the need to complete a Level 1 for this fishery, therefore the ECOTF was escalated to a species-specific (Level 2 equivalent) assessment. The ECOTF Species of Conservation Concern (SOCC) ERA focused on the species level with risk evaluations based on a Productivity & Susceptibility Analysis (PSA). The PSA evaluates risk for each species through an assessment of seven biological attributes and five fisheries-specific and conservation-related attributes.

Based on the outputs of three existing ERAs (Pears et al., 2012; Jacobsen et al., 2015; Campbell et al., 2017) and following a process by which species with conservation concerns were prioritised for inclusion (including selected species within the Threatened, Endangered and Protected Animals logbook), the ECOTF SOCC ERA assessed the risk posed to 62 species. This included six marine turtles, nine syngnathids, 13 sea snakes, 22 batoids and 12 sharks. Of the 62 species, three were assigned high-risk ratings. The remaining 59 species were assigned precautionary high (n = 9), medium (n = 28), precautionary medium (n = 15) and low (n = 7) risk ratings). The risk profiles for many SOCC were heavily influenced by biological constraints, uncertainty driven by data deficiencies and management limitations.

The ECOTF SOCC ERA made a list of recommendations to assist in the management and mitigation of risk in the ECOTF. A number of these measures are already being discussed and considered as part of the Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017–2027 and the Data validation Plan, and will be progressed through the Trawl Fishery Working Group.