Queensland joins calls for shark-take crackdown
The taxman is taking up to 70 per cent of recreational catches, and frustrated fishers want actionQueensland fishers have joined growing calls for more relaxed shark fishing restrictions in a bid to stop the apex predators from stealing catches as they’re being pulled onto boats.
The move comes in the wake of the claim that, just like in Western Australia, as many as seven out of every 10 fish pulled into the boat are either lost to shark bite-off, or damaged.
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The problem, officially known as “shark depreciation”, is also believed to have a large impact on commercial fishing.
One charter boat operator told ABC News that it “might lose 58 out of 60 fish” to shark bite-offs.
The call comes as Western Australia announced it would commit more than $350,000 of the money raised via recreational fishing licences to study “effective mitigation methods” for deterring sharks from taking catch including magnets and sound waves.
The study will sea-test shark-repelling technologies at sites where shark bite-off is an issue.
Seals nuisance
However, the moves won’t help fishers in southern states where seals – not sharks – are becoming a nuisance.
Victoria-based Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club commodore Keith Miller told boatsales.com.au that while shark bite-offs were not an issue, the incidence of seals stealing catch was “getting more prevalent each year”.
Seals also are a widespread problem in Tasmania, where they are attracted to the state’s salmon farms. The farms catch and relocate the seals, but professional fishers complain that the animals then go on to harass their commercial operations.
Sharks are managed via special licences handed out to commercial fishers, but numbers are limited. Seals, on the other hand, are a protected species, and populations have increased markedly as the species establishes new breeding colonies.
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