Fishing lockouts for Sydney: Opinion

Scientists and their diving cohorts are calling for more no-fishing zones in Sydney after a recent study found there are more and bigger fish in the no-fishing Aquatic Reserve at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly. But is the science skewed?

The Sydney Harbour Research Program, which is run by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS), has just released a press release (above link) about their interesting underwater study. Here's an excerpt:

"A 2015 survey of marine life on Sydney’s rocky reefs has revealed that partially protected aquatic reserves are failing to protect fish. Fully protected no-take zones, like the reserve at Cabbage Tree Bay in Manly, had a greater abundance and diversity of large fish. The survey found that aquatic reserves with only partial protection were no better than unprotected areas in terms of both the number of fish species and number of large fish (sized 25cm or more)."

This might seem like a specific Sydney issue, but there are also ramifications for other locations with an abundance of fish. The reason for the abundance of fish might not be natural factors, but as a result of increased favourable human activity. This is the case with Cabbage Tree Bay, where there are almost as many divers as fish.

CITIZEN SCIENCE
- Insight into what is going on
This writer knows Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve at Manly pretty well. After all, it is in my Sydney backyard and regular visitations above and below the water have been part of my existence as a local for a very long time. I am what you might call a citizen scientist.

I knew the bolthole before it became a no-take marine reserve on March 31, 2002, and I know it now that it has become a tourist diving mecca where, a few years ago, it became so fever pitched my pregnant wife got flipper kicked in the stomach. I kid you not.

I have swum (before the local pink-swim-capped Bold and the Beautiful arrived), surfed, fished, spearfished, rock hopped and played with my kids at Cabbage Tree Bay, Shelly Beach and Fairy Bower since I was a kid more than 40 years ago. I still enjoy doing this as often as twice a week.

NATURAL BEAUTY
- A bolthole where everyone flocks
With its often clear oceanic water and abundant reef, Cabbage Tree Bay attracts scores of divers, while the protection of the headland affords families a safe place to swim in most sea breezes. The bay has been a magnet for fish since time immemorial.

Cabbage Tree Bay has the ideal mix of reef, kelp, sand, gravel, shell grit, aerated foamy water and, always feeling fresh, ocean currents.

Mind you, 24 years ago the area suffered from the Bluefish Point sewerage discharge and, when the current ran uphill, we all swam and surfed in the balls of fat, toilet paper, brown mullet and sludge.

So there have been some major transformative events at Cabbage Tree Bay in my lifetime thus far.

MORE FISH NOW?
- Yes, they are being nurtured and fed
Are there more fish there today than before the declaration of the Aquatic Reserve in 2002? Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt. When you enter the water at Cabbage Tree Bay now, the fish are waiting for you... and the handouts that I have seen offered to them by divers.

Now, we all used to smash sea urchins when diving. The cloud of guts and roe would attract the white ears, mados and little sweep, then a few crimson-banded parrots or banana wrasse, maybe an old boot (wirrah) and usually a green eel, and, what we came for, some curious female brown and 'transgender' blue groper.

It’s not kosher to smash sea urchins any more, despite the fact urchin barrens are more abundant than ever and we probably should be smashing them. But you still find them smashed underwater at Cabbage Tree Bay. Maybe that's the groper?

What I have witnessed are divers wading in with bags of bread to feed the fish. Not all do it, but some definitely do. The fish seem to know this. The fish swim right up to you. Gosh they are tame. Let’s count them.

Now we have the science forwarded by SIMS, which funds the Underwater Research Group that performed the underwater fish counts using divers who have discovered a rise in fish numbers. My citizen science agrees. Is that due to the angling ban, you have to doubt it.

In Cabbage Tree Aquatic Reserve, a complete marine reserve, more bigger fish exist. This is the same reserve where the fish are just plain tame after 365-day human interaction year after year after year. The do not swim away as they do elsewhere. They are more like pets.

Everywhere you go, the opportunistic fish follow. It’s great, if not rather unnatural. The fish are so friendly that if you perform a headcount, nothing surer, you will note more than other locations where the geography is different, there is less human interaction, and the fish spook (as they do in the real wild).

UNIQUE RESERVES
- Divers angling for more fishing-free space
The beautiful little bolthole that is Shelly Beach and Cabbage Tree Bay is one of a kind. It’s a stunning location. I can see why humans and fish gravitate there. And it is a wonderful resource for the dive and tourist operators, (don't tell them the beach had the highest pollution count in NSW due to plastic refuse).

Of course, the ABC is going to give some ink to the marine park issue with the backing of scientists, aided and assisted by eco divers, who are advocates of marine reserves for vested interests, too. Here is the resulting ABC story:

DIVING FRENZY
- Clearly ridiculous diver numbers are having an unnatural impact
Now let me tell you one salient fact: Cabbage Tree Aquatic Reserve has exceeded its capacity.

It’s a thronging, flipping, bubbling, foaming washing machine of divers and dive businesses these days. They have had to Astroturf and concrete the gear-up bays due to erosion. It can take no more. It's as far from nature as Epping is from the Elysian Fields. Even the sharks have given up biting people and surfers at nearby Fairy Bower and Winkipop.

Sydney's Northern Beaches desperately needs another commercial dive location to spare poor old Cabbage Tree Bay, all those suffering fish and the displaced locals who struggle to walk the boardwalk.

We boaters are free to anchor at Cabbage Tree Bay, an essential ocean roadstead protected from southerlies, and we were promised moorings. But they just aren't forthcoming and the dive fraternity wants boaters out. This is getting ridiculous.

Meantime, the economic output of recreational fishing in the Sydney region exceeds $1 billion annually, with 56 per cent of the $1.62 billion in angling expenditure in NSW attributed to the Sydney region. There are almost 1 million anglers in NSW and almost half those are based in Sydney.

The reduction in access and the negative implications of more no-fishing areas might need to be fairly compensated by something other than inconsequential underwater fish head counts in somewhere you can't cast a line.

The 11 Sydney Sites Earmarked for Greater Protection
Anglers may well be banned and divers given exclusive access to one of the following sites in the Hawkesbury Bioregion.
>> Barrenjoey Head (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> Bouddi National Park Marine Extension
>> Bronte-Coogee (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> Cape Banks (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> Chowder Bay (nearby site of Sydney Institute of Marine Science)
>> Long Reef (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> Narrabeen Head (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> North Harbour (an existing Aquatic Reserve)
>> North Harbour extension – Manly Wharf and Manly Cove
>> Magic Point, Malabar
>> Wybung Head