Feb 1, 2017 - 'N' Try Days, Gone Fishing. Days, Family Fishing Lakes and Premier Lakes, fishing clinics and angling club outreach days - these are some.
Science meets fishing Licences and catch, Queensland charter boats Source: Productivity Commission “Draft report on marine fisheries and aquaculture”, based on information provided by the Queensland Government. 400
800 Weight of catch (tonnes)
Number of licences
fishing gear and knowledge. The question is, are these the game-changers - the initiatives that will persuade hundreds of thousands of once or twicea-decade fishers to become every-year fishers? What about the battlers, the single parents with kids, people with disabilities, elderly, non-English speaking and other people who’d like to fish but can’t take that first step? What’s been stopping them is not the fact that, until now, we haven’t had: • a minimum size for trout; • trout cod fisheries at Beechworth; • barra fishing in Hazelwood Pondage; • unrestricted boating on Blue Rock Lake; • net-free fishing in the bay; • mulloway and estuary perch stocked in Lake Tyers.
300
600
Number of licences 200
400
100
200 2001-02
2003-04
environmental impacts, boat ramp congestion, etc? Let’s forget arbitrary targets and, instead, focus on helping all Victorians to realise
Retaining kids’ active interest in fishing as they move into busy adult lives: this is the biggest challenge to building participation. To be really effective, a program aimed at increasing the number of Victorians fishing each year must identify and tailor a range of attractions to match the range of occasional fishers and non-fishers who aspire to fish but face barriers preventing them from making a start. A number of the current Target One Million and Fisheries Victoria programs have the potential to attract occasional fishers to become more active. After asking fishers what they want and how they’d prefer to see their RFL funds invested, Fisheries Victoria has responded with a variety of attractive programs. These include an increased range of stocked species and improved access and facilities, information products, recreational fishing reefs and restrictions on commercial fishing. Coupled with the recent recovery of many inland waters, these initiatives are increasing the opportunities for those fishers who already have
Programs like the Come ‘N’ Try Days, Gone Fishing Days, Family Fishing Lakes and Premier Lakes, fishing clinics and angling club outreach days - these are some of the sorts of events that offer would-be fishers the chance to take the first step. But again, will these attractions release hundreds of thousands of new fishers from what’s been holding them back and turn them into every-year fishers? Most of these opportunities have been on offer for years and yet overall participation has been falling. WE NEED MUCH BETTER INFORMATION Most recreational fishers will agree that we’d like it to be as easy as possible for kids to get into fishing; we should be removing barriers that are holding back people of all ages and personal situations. But, from the most likely starting point of around 500,000 adult fishers, do we really want to see a 100% increase in fisher numbers, pressure on fish stocks,
Weight of catch (tonnes)
• fishers typically fished in 2.4 out of five years; • ‘new’ fishers planned to stay fishing for five years but only 32% did so; • fishing competes with hunting, hiking, boating, cycling, golf, etc • women and children ‘lapse’ from fishing most often. While the fishing pattern of Victorian fishers will be different, this US ‘profiling’ illustrates the point that we have many more fishers than are ever active in a given year. It also points to the competing outdoor recreational and domestic activities that draw some fishers away. As an aside, the US study also illustrates what a powerful research tool a fishing licence scheme can be when every fisher is licensed and identified individually.
their recreational fishing ambitions. To do that we need much different information than any previous recreational fishing study has ever
2005-06
2007-08
provided. We need a survey sampling across the whole Victorian population, asking: • whether they ever fish, fish as often as they’d like or haven’t fished but would like to; • what’s stopping them from fishing as often as they’d like or from starting to fish; • what are the other activities they turn to and what’s more attractive about those things. With this information we’ll have a basis for developing programs targeted at helping everyone to maximise their enjoyment of fishing, based on an understanding of what’s been holding the various groups back. Then the key question will be: is this a job for the government or for recreational fishing interests? And, of course, as the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office and the Productivity Commission have reminded us, if we’re going to ‘grow’ fisher numbers and fishing pressure, we need far better programs to measure the impacts on fish stocks and the environment. HOW ABOUT WORKING WITH OTHER STATES While the Victorian Government is unique in working so actively to increase fisher numbers, it shares the challenge of declining participation with other states and territories. The authors of a 2013/14 survey of
2009-10
2011-12
recreational fishing in NSW compared the rate of decrease in NSW’s participation rates with those seen in other state-wide surveys around Australia. They concluded that all the evidence points to a clear national trend - ‘the pattern of overall declining participation that is emerging appears to be linked to both the ageing of the population and a decline in retention of younger fishers, noting that the highest participation rates have consistently been amongst children’. How can the trend in Victoria possibly be different? The nationwide decline in recreational fishing participation is reflected in declining fishing charter and boating industry statistics. Take one example from the 2016 Productivity Commission draft report on marine fisheries and aquaculture. Graph 1 shows the clear downward trends in charter boat numbers and catches in Queensland. The numbers of registered recreational vessels and recreational fishers have also been declining there. The Commission’s report also shows gradual declines in the numbers of active South Australian charter vessels, clients and trips and a pronounced decline in retained fish. While Victoria lacks charter industry statistics,
Do fishers really want to see twice as many people fishing, increasing pressure on fish stocks, boat ramps and other facilities?
2013-14 Transport Safety Victoria data show that the annual increase in recreational vessel numbers in Victoria has fallen to almost zero; in other words, the number of registered boats has reached a plateau. What all this tells us is that, around Australia, we’re all in the same boat. The overwhelming message from recreational fishing, charter and boating information points to declining participation. While the Victorian Government may be working the hardest to boost recreational fishing participation, you can bet that some other states share this objective to some degree. The third objective of Victoria’s Fisheries Act is “to promote ... quality recreational fishing opportunities for the benefit of present and future generations”. Other states will have similar objectives. Perhaps more importantly, the fishing tackle, boating, tourism and other allied industries have a large vested interest in the growth of recreational fishing. The next step towards a better understanding of what’s behind the trends in recreational fishing participation around Australia may be a national survey currently under development. In April, following a national meeting of Fisheries Ministers from around Australia, Senator Anne Ruston’s media release stated, “The Australian Government will progress implementation of a national recreational fishing survey focussing on socio-economic data”. In an ideal world, this study should be more than a descriptive snapshot of our fisheries at a particular point in time; it should be designed, conducted and analysed in a way that enables a much better interpretation and understanding of what’s behind the trends we’re seeing. At the same time it should provide the first credible estimate of fishing participation in Victoria since 2000/01. Fingers-crossed! In the end, it shouldn’t matter how many of us fish in a given year; just as long as there’s nothing stopping us from doing so if we wish to. FEBRUARY 2017
81
