Western Australia’s Department of Fisheries has published a report of its approach to enabling cost effective monitoring and assessment of the State’s highly diverse finfish resources (scalefish, sharks and rays). The Resource Assessment Framework (RAF) for Finfish Resources in Western Australia outlines the department’s methods for monitoring and assessing the status of the more than 3,000 species of finfish in the State’s waters, located from inshore estuaries out to the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone boundary.
The press release of the ministry says that the finfish resources, highly diverse range of species spread over more than 12,800 km of coastline, poses a significant challenge. Most fisheries agencies manage far fewer species along significantly smaller stretches of coastline. To handle such threats the Department of Fisheries WA divides the State into ‘Bioregions’ – four marine Bioregions, plus two inland Bioregions. Within each marine Bioregion, each species of finfish is allocated to one of five ‘suites’ – estuarine, nearshore, inshore demersal, offshore demersal or pelagic.
Two independent scientific reviews have validated the use of indicator species to assess the status of each of Western Australia’s important suites of fishery resources. Besides biological and ecological factors the selection of species are also social and economic considerations. This means the department can focus its resources on a manageable number of species that are biologically, as well as socially and economically, relevant.
