Minister’s revised package of recreational fishing rules to manage finfish species under pressure on Western Australia’s West Coast. It reduced bag limits, increased size requirements, a boat limit for high-risk fish, new possession limits of 10kg of fillets at the Abrolhos Islands fish protection area and a recreational fishers’ logbook programme to aid research are among the raft of measures.
Moore told that he had deferred a decision regarding the previous proposal to impose seasonal bans on fishing for those species which have come under increased pressure. He added that as per the research dhufish, pink snapper and baldchin groper are over-fished in the West Coast bioregion (between north of Kalbarri to east of Augusta).
The Minister believe that it is a strong case to reduce fishing pressure after considering management options made public by the previous government. He explained that the revised recreational fishing rules will still include reductions in daily bag and boat limits and an increase in the minimum legal size for pink snapper.
Moore also admits that the revised regulations would take effect in January 2009, at the same time new arrangements for the commercial fishing sector also took effect. He told that the commercial fishing sector has been subjected to significant changes, including a ban on the commercial catch of scalefish and sharks in the metropolitan fishing zone. According to him there had been substantial reductions in the effort for the commercial demersal gillnet and longline fishery and, from January, commercial wetline fishers would also operate under amended management plan arrangements to reduce their catch.
