Publication Date

1982

Series Number

Fisheries Report 52

Publisher

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Western Australia

City

Perth

ISBN

0 7244 9079 5

ISSN

0726-0733

Abstract

In 1975, following a number of years of research by the CSIRO Division of Fisheries and Oceanography, it was decided to conduct. a renewed programme cooperatively between CSIRO and W.A. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. The results of the joint programmes will be presented elsewhere. Meanwhile this paper. describes the Western Australian salmon fishery in 1981 and over the life of the current CSIRO/W.A. salmon research programme i.e. 1975-1981. It considers both the professional and amateur fishery, the disposal of the catch and attempts to discuss any changes in technique, effort, etc. which may have occurred in the period 1975-1981.

The professional salmon catch is examined in detail. As the purpose of the current programme was to investigate reasons for the decline in the fishery, from the record years of 1966 to 1968, the period 1966/67 to 1980/81 is considered. It was not the purpose of this investigation to consider the fishery before 1966/67. In the past there has been argument as to the total catch reached for the record years 1966/67 and 1967/68. It was possible during this investigation to check all south coast receival data from 1948 to 1981 and to verify total catch figures for these years. These data will be published separately in the future together with some other of the material considered in this document. Unfortunately it was not possible to check factory receival data from the west coast before 1975, because original receival data is no longer held by west coast processors. Catch data are obtained in both financial and calender years depending upon its source e.g. factory records Albany in calender years and Australian Bureau of Statistics figures in financial years. As most of the catches in recent years occur during the season from February to April in most cases it is reasonable to assume that, for example, the 1967/68 season is equivalent to 1968.

The paper also considers log book data collected by CSIRO and the W.A. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. In the past these data were regarded as of limited value and giving no indication of fishing effort. It was possible during the course of this programme to collect together log books from CSIRO, W.A. and fishermen and to obtain some meaningful results from them.

Finally an attempt is made to briefly summarise the current state of the W.A. salmon fishery.

Keywords

Australian Salmon, Fishery, Western Australia

Disciplines

Aquaculture and Fisheries | Marine Biology | Natural Resource Economics | Natural Resources and Conservation | Natural Resources Management and Policy | Sustainability

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