Fisheries Research Development Corporation (FRDC) has funded this project as the corporation is looking at the record low puerulus settlement in Western Australia’s West Coast Rock Lobster Fishery. FRDC said that computer modelling experts, from Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in the United States and the Tasmania Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute (TAFI), will work with local WA modellers on the project, to establish additional assessment techniques for the fishery that will provide robust measures of residual biomass, harvest rates and increases in fishing efficiency
Dr Simon de Lestang, rock lobster research scientist, said it was important that all possible impacts on recruitment were examined to provide more certainty in proving future forecasts for this fishery. He added that examining harvest rates, in addition to breeding stock levels, represented best practice fisheries science and having additional techniques independent of the stock-assessment model would improve confidence in the management advice.
