Utilisation of boat ramp cameras to estimate recreational fishing catch and effort in key Victorian fisheries

Funding Activity

Website
https://www.frdc.com.au/project/2021-008

Funding Status
Active

Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the .

Funded Activity Summary

There is no current information on total recreational fishing effort or landings for Victorian fisheries and therefore no continuous time series on these variables, as is the case in most jurisdictions. This represent a key knowledge gap, and hence risk, for fisheries sustainability in the state and has resulted in several fisheries (i.e. those with significant recreational catch) being assessed as ‘Undefined’ in the most recent SAFS round.
In addition to the above, the Victorian Government has brought out several bay and inlet fisheries over the last two decades, meaning recreational catch is the most significant harvest component for most species/stocks. This also means that there is no longer commercial logbook data being obtained on which to base assessment of these species/stocks. As such, having recreational catch and effort information will enable more sophisticated population dynamic stock assessment models to be used for assessment purposes. Victoria possesses such a model that is parameterised for the Western Victorian Snapper Stock (WVSS), complete with management strategy evaluation, that cannot be used to inform decision making at present because the landings from the largest fleet (i.e. boat based recreational fishers) are currently unknown.
Recreational catch and effort information will be used for ongoing stock assessment to inform management advice to inform the following immediate, direct priorities: 1) WVSS harvest strategy, 2) rebuilding of the Gippsland Lakes black bream stock, 3) Corner Inlet Management Plan, and 4) assessment of the eastern Victorian snapper stock.


Objectives:
1. Calibration of boat ramp camera infrastructure
2. Extrapolation of fishing effort to boat ramps that do not have cameras using Google Earth imagery
3. Combining fishing effort information derived from boat ramp cameras and Google Earth with creel survey data to estimate the fishing effort and landings of snapper in Port Phillip Bay, the total boat based recreational landings in Corner Inlet and landings of black bream in the Gippsland Lakes

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-07-2021

End Date: 30-08-2024

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $142,200.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

RAC VIC

Related Links