If you want to completely destroy the commercial fishing industry in Australia closely followed by a ‘top heavy’ management bureaucracy there is a formula, a recipe that must be followed. Unfortunately we seem to be heading down that path. Firstly you need to identify the ingredients:
Take a Federal minister who enjoys yahooing about on horseback, spending $15 million of our money to develop a shock collar to fit cattle and set him loose on the fishing industry. Add to this a Commonwealth Ministry, the Department of Environment and Heritage who enlist the likes of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) as lobbyists to the Korean International Whaling Commission, (as a NGO they are not welcome to IUCN or other meetings, they have to gain entrance through Australia’s invitation), and all of a sudden you can see we are all on a path of implosion. (Mind you IFAW went against the Government weeks later when the Australian government wanted to bring breeding elephants to Australia).
Mix this with a marine mammal expert who understates the take of wild fish in our southern oceans by 40% to Australia’s leading marine researcher, (a man recently bestowed with an OAM and a professor who has had over $20 million in research grants) – and charged with modelling Australia’s fisheries to 2050. By now the cracks begin to show as a $400,000. three-year work is seemingly ignored and left on the shelf to gather dust.
Set up a National Seal Strategy Group and let them adjudicate as to the management and interactions of seals with fishing gear whilst 160,000 seals in Australia’s Southern oceans take 432,000 tonnes of wild fish, almost twice the commercial catch in Australia. Mix all of the above, include heads of Australia’s major fisheries management and research organisations, which are directed by their Minister to “save the seal” and all of a sudden you have a disaster!
Quickly throw $200 million dollars at the Commonwealth fisheries buy-back and there will be a solution at hand. Leave seals ever-increasing in population and in the next ten to twenty years when they have doubled and most of the commercial fishing effort has been bought-out, leave Commonwealth bureaucrats staring into space, playing with their navels, (or even lower), whilst our wild fisheries are overrun with seals. Can’t blame the fishermen and the seal take in our southern waters has increased by 7.5 to 15-fold and yet the commercial fishermen are still copping it in the neck, buy-back more licences to maintain fisheries – has anyone thought that maybe the seals should be managed, just like the kangaroo and emu?
Solution, adopt the World Conservation Union (IUCN) recommendation from its 3rd congress in Bangkok in November 2004 and “harvest” seals!
Was that a sensible response “harvest seals”. How long will it take our fisheries managers and research bodies, along with commonwealth and state fisheries bodies to realise that SEALS ARE A MAJOR PROBLEM! Not only do they cause millions of dollars of damage to fishing gear but they consume 432,000 tonnes of fish – in real terms @ $5 per kilogram that is around $21 billion dollars worth of fish. And they don’t take the “shitties” they love whiting, squid, flathead, mackerel and red-bait – five fisheries predict to ‘crash’ after 2006 if something is not done.
But alas there are 70,000 New Zealand fur seals in South Australia’s waters – an introduced species by anyone’s account? No shortage when one considers New Zealand has in excess of 2 million. Let’s take the ‘feral’ “non-native” firstly and then take a look at our fisheries management? Maybe the sustainability of our fisheries will improve; no further take by fishermen but a huge recovery of commercial and other fish species that are dependant and compete for fish eaten by seals; blue fin tuna, school and gummy shark, squid, snapper, etc. But that is too hard for our ‘light and fluffy’ fish managers, the ‘backslappers’ brigade keeping each other in lucrative jobs rather than managing fisheries for FISHERMEN and not politicians – please throw the “polly” another cracker!
Where are we going in Australia with our fisheries management? I went to the Crawford Conference two years ago in Canberra concerning sustainable fisheries and I asked one of the presenters from Seafood Services Australia, “how sustainable are our fisheries if seals take 432,000 tonnes per annum”, and he replied, “if we don’t start shooting seals soon we will lose fisheries!” The man couldn’t be anymore blunt but obviously no one was listening. Australia’s leading fisheries researcher, Professor Bob Kearney stated in the FRDC research project; “Modelling Australia’s Fisheries to 2050: Policy and Management Implications”, (and you can view it on www.cse.csiro.au/research/futures/fishfutures/index.htm), that;
“The simulated pressure of increased feed demand by seals is the main cause of the simulated crash, in this report, in fish units along the southern Australian coastline that are highly preferred in seal diets. These include red bait, whitings, flatheads, mackerels and squid. The fisheries begin to crash after 2006 in the simulation model with the biggest affects seen in Commonwealth and Victorian fisheries. (Page 27 – 28).
When I stood before the auditorium at last year ASIC bi-annual meeting in Sydney and said that I wanted to harvest seals to maintain the “sustainability” of fisheries, I was not joking – I was deadly serious. But did our major fisheries research organisation and our commonwealth fisheries manager take any heed? Kearney’s report took three years and $400,000 of FRDC monies – your research levy money!
So rather than belt the fishermen about the head with buy-outs and pathetic offerings of re-establishment allowances, etc., why not expand the fishing industry and harvest seals – I have processing and export markets already organised with a potential $60 million export industry. Instead of sitting by and watching fisheries “crash”, why can’t something proactive be done before the inevitable?
I have a solution! A buy-out of politicians, appointments of fisheries managers from the ground level, the same for our research organisation and the use of science in the management of Australia’s inshore and commonwealth waters without the wishy-washy emotion. Too easy!
Well, you might find this a little trite but I have become tired of the stupidity of fisheries managers and their swanky fisheries managers “hangers-on”. Like the politicians, they are in place to manage fisheries for human consumption (primarily), and assign an apportionment to seals and other predators. Give fishermen their dignity and heritage – surely the sustainability of their industry is in their best interest!
On a final note I would like to offer enlightenment. As you go further down the ‘food chain’ the fecundity (reproduction rate) of each level increases. If our fish managers continue to protect seals, whales and dolphins instead of utilising these valuable resources, our fisheries will disappear – but it will not be through the fault of the fishermen but as a result of protection by man. It’s about time we accept that everything is on the table fare; emus, crocodile, kangaroo, possum, wild ducks, wild geese, wild fish, seals dolphins and whales. Aquaculture is a stop-gap approach but unless we manage seals very promptly and contemplate the management of other marine mammals we will have no one to blame when our fisheries crash but our managers – and they will still walk away with a handsome superannuation cheque whilst our fishermen struggle to survive! Its time for a change and that is why I am ‘cracking the whip’. I have a low tolerance of fools and I see far too many having too much said with our fisheries management.
In closing I would like to use Professor Bob Kearney’s words from section 7.6 Future management and institutional responsibilities of the 2050 report:
“Therefore it appears inevitable that Commonwealth natural resource research, management and policy agencies, such as Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, (FRDC), Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Australia, (AFFA), and Environment Australia, (EA), will be called to account for the provision of leadership and coordination in progressing beyond management at the margin, into innovative and perhaps revolutionary changes in the way Australians view and manage their fisheries resources.” (Page 37)
Rather than buy-out fishermen’s licences, maybe its time to start harvesting seals and releasing their feed fish for the benefit of other competing ‘predator’ species and ensure the sustainability and health of the whole marine eco-system! I also hear dolphin and whale meat is quite palatable, even if we have to export it to China.
