NESP Marine and Coastal Hub (2023). Sawfish monitoring: improved collection of fisher bycatch data. Project 3.11 Information sheet. Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, Cairns, Queensland.
Overview
The iconic sawfish is one of the world’s most endangered fish and their numbers in Northern Australia are believed to be low. Conservation managers need much more information in order to effectively manage them.
In particular, they need to better understand the impacts of the gillnet and trawl fisheries that unintentionally catch sawfish alongside their target species.
Despite there being government requirements to report details of sawfish captures, including associated deaths or subsequent releases, a number of factors have led to under-reporting.
One reason is that larger sawfish (up to 7 metres) are dangerous and difficult to handle and release, and contribute to time pressures during the processing of the main catch. This limits a fisher’s ability to take records whilst dealing with other urgent and essential tasks.
Other reasons for low rates of reporting are: a minimal or absent understanding of the importance of reporting or the actual requirements; lack of trust in the process; and, an overly complex reporting system (identified by NESP Project 1.25).
This project addresses the critical need to develop mechanisms for effective sawfish reporting by commercial fishers, and to build accurate estimates of population numbers and changes over time.
