FISHERMAN in the region have been handing over their fish skeletons to the Department of Fisheries for over 15 years to help sustain recreational and commercial fishing.
The demersal skeleton program run by the department monitors the stock status of near shore and inshore demersal fin fish from Augusta to Shark Bay.
Department of Fisheries WA senior technical officer Brett Crisafulli said the fish species being monitored were WA dhu fish, snapper, baldchin groper, red throat emperor, bite red fish, Australian herring, tailor and King George whiting.
Mr Crisafulli said the department determined the affect of fishing on the stock and whether the stock was healthy by checking the fishes age, size and they way the stocks changed over time.
“In terms of different ages the more healthier a population is, the more spread of ages you will have,” he said.
“The best way to get that information and see what is happening out there is to get what has been caught from people which is why we chase the frames from people all the time.”
When the program first started fisheries found the status of stocks were quite low and a lot of the fish species were over fished across the commercial and recreational sectors.
Mr Crisafulli said the department restructured the commercial sector and introduced new restrictions on recreational fishing to replenish the stock.
While restrictions were put in place, Mr Crisafulli said people should not be concerned that restrictions would become stricter.
“By helping us out and showing that the fish are doing okay the more we can keep limits same, look to the future and potentially relax restrictions,” he said.
“We will not have to make things stricter which is something that has happened sequentially for quite a while now and hopefully we can make things stabilise.”
Mr Crisafulli said older fish had more spawning potential than younger ones so if all the older fish were taken out, so would all the spawning potential.
“Older fish produce the most sperm and eggs, when they are knocked out it takes away the stock to be able to replenish itself,” he said.
Fisheries are chasing fish frames with the fillets and wings taken out but would like the guts and female or male gonads intact to see the reproduction stage of the fish, along with information about where the fish was caught and the date.
“We can provide individualised feedback on the fish people donate and send back general information about the individual and biological information of the fish handed in,” he said.
As an added incentive the Department of Fisheries run a raffle and give away a grand prize from their major sponsor Montebello Island Safaris which offer a fishing trip up North.
Naturaliste Game and Sport Fishing Club president Graham Morris said the members at their club saved their frames which were collected by the Department of Fisheries research assistant Kim Clayton.
Mr Morris said they would contact Ms Clayton when they had frames which needed to be collected and had been involved in different research projects to help monitor stock in the region.
“We have been involved in squid and crab projects as well, all kinds of stuff,” he said.
To find out more about the project or how to get involved visit fish.wa.gov.au/fishing-and-aquaculture/recreational-fishing/send-us-your-skeletons/Pages/default.aspx.
