Maybe a one pinky per boat rule?

Salmo



WA Marine Parks are multiple use area which allows activities which are deemed compatible with the objectives of the Marine Park.



Marine Parks in WA are always promoted as "for protecting biodiversity" and specifically "NOT for managing fish stocks".



Cockburn Sound is already highly developed and many of the activities are covered by specific agreements and licences, (eg the shellsand mining), which would not (I think) be changed by any Marine Park status.



Environmental Protection Legislation and Environmental Reviews and Impact Assessments are meant to be applied to each development or extension, but the exact requirements and predicted impacts are subject to interpretation and can be overridden or relaxed by Government.



Cockburn Sound has died "the death of 1000 cuts" where lots of individual things have collectively made a big impact, yet each of the recent and proposed ones (like the Port) have or will pass the Environmental Impact Assessments.



So my comments on your points:-



1. Yes



2. Yes, but this is easy because most existing WA Marine Parks avoid developed areas, or have wishy washy objectives in those areas (Geographe Bay in Proposed Capes MP can't manage terrestrial impacts which are the major cause of changes to water quality in the Bay) I doubt that Marine Park status would change anything in Cockburn Sound.



3. There are more effective and direct ways of changing people's attitudes/opinions.



4. No. Would not cut the catch of demersal species such as dhufish and baldies, etc, so would not meet the "must do" requirements of the West Coast rec fishing changes FMP225.



5. Unlikely. See the comments about environmental impact assessments.



6. No. There's a State Agreement which a previous Government was not prepared to cancel. See Recfishwest's submission and appeal http://www.recfishwest.org.au/SubCCERMPFinal.htm and http://www.recfishwest.org.au/SubCSAppeal.htm (and there's more on that topic)



The footer I used a few years ago about Marine parks says a lot:-

Andy....yep agree about the safe boating for families chasing bread and butter species....

but as Terry said "WA Marine Parks are multiple use area('s) which allows activities which are deemed compatible with the objectives of the Marine Park."

Like Marmion, Jurien, Ningaloo.... 

And thanks Terry for taking the time to reply.....whilst giving me more to ponder about.

Agree with your past footer....

replies to you points (maybe not that good though)

Q1 What do you want to achieve or protect? What's important?

A:Maybe protect remnant biodiversity, and the pinkies

Q2 What tools could be used to achieve those? eg seasonal spawning closures to protect pink snapper.

A: total snapper protection

promote 'clean cockburn industry' by introduction of a green merit badge businesses can use whilst promoting/marketing their products/services

approaching one of the big companies down that way to adopt the pinky....better than a Sunbear or monkey in a zoo.....

Q3 What are the risks to whatever is important, what activities affect those and MUST be controlled, what activities DON'T affect those and can be allowed to continue because stopping them serves absolutely no purpose eg fishing for pelagics, crabs, squid, etc

A: I think you answered that one already, but I will take that question to bed as home work.....

cheers again

Salmo -  well started thread, and as Andy said, admirable notion. Though, I agree, put in a Snapper ban and allow the bread and butter fishing. If you put in a total ban, you'd have to ban everyone, including shore fishos and that would be upsetting to a lot of recreational newbie/existing fishos.

For obvious reasons, I too don't fish Cockburn Sound, but have many fond years of spending a lot of my fishing time there (both shore and boats) and would like to see that continued for others.

IMO, if we ban Snapper fishing, it's got to be all or nothing.

Colin

RECFISHWEST Member 576
VMR 610 - Albany Sea Rescue - Mariner 421

The comments seem to come down to 2 specifics.



Monitoring and protecting the Cockburn Sound environment.



There is an existing and established organisation, the "Cockburn Sound Management Council" see http://csmc.environment.wa.gov.au/ made up of... which does.....



Well you read all the stuff on their website for yourself to see who / which organisations are on that Council, what they do / don't do / can do / can't do / aren't allowed to do / are limited by, etc, etc, etc,



Protecting and managing pink snapper.



Protecting and managing pink snapper is a Dept of Fisheries and Minister of Fisheries responsibility. There is already a spawning season closure in Cockburn/Warnboro Sounds which has been extended over recent years and is now 4 months long, all of October to January inclusive - see http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/pub/WestLimits/snapper.php?0102



That's a closed season for taking pinkies for 1/3 of the year. The rest of the time there is a daily limit of only 1 fish over 700mm per person.



Is that enough? Is the catch sustainable with these times and limits?



The outcome of Fisheries Management Paper 225 http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/mp/mp225/index.php?0602 could change or extend these - introduce more or different limits.



Here are some extracts from an article in West Australian Saturday 2 Feb (can't find any link to it on the West's website)

"That's a closed season for taking pinkies for 1/3 of the year. The rest of the time there is a daily limit of only 1 fish over 700mm per person.

Is that enough? Is the catch sustainable with these times and limits?"

 In answer to that question... Not when you can still see a professional clean up dozens, maybe hundreds of fish straight after the closed season on a daily basis and see dozens of rec anglers all jostling for position to take advantage of the vulnerability of "big fish" that they would otherwise have to hunt long and hard to find in open water.

 Just doesn't seem right to me. Its like a pack mentality... "Oh did you hear the Pinkies (vulnerable breeders) are going off, everyone else is getting them so we had better do it too."

Fishing either side of a closed season when you know there are still plenty of "big fish" (vulnerable breeders) more easily accessible than you would otherwise experience, is just wrong. I understand it is legal, but it is just wrong in my opinion. Take that temptation away and you will make a big difference.

Either extend the closed season from Sept to February (6 months) or ban Snapper fishing altogether from Cockburn Sound and Warnboro for that matter too.

Woops probably stirred the pot a bit there but, I can only state my honest opinion.

Andy



The critical question is "Will the catch be sustainable?"



As far as I have been able to find out IT WILL BE.



Spawning fish need ENOUGH protection. Enough doesn't necessarily mean COMPLETE protection of ALL the fish ALL the time.



Yep I expect people will ask for proof of that, and the difficulty is the lack of relevant and recent catch data - well publicly available just now.



People can reasonably expect that info which comes out soon as the outcome of FMP225 will show that whatever catches will result from the proposed limits are completely sustainable.



There's little point in complete bans or excessive restrictions when all that achieves is to take away some great fishing opportunities.



TerryF

=====

Beavering away in the background......

I think that making the sound a marine park or sanctury would be wrong, like andy said there are a lot of people who fish the sound for herring, whitting etc...
They dont have large boats and dont fish deep!
The ban on snapper for part of the year is a good idea.
If they cut the bag limit on them aswell surley the two combined would play a role in keeping the snapper in good numbers. There is enough crap and pollution pumped into the sound as is, plus new development, so how could it be a marine park?

about not making it a sanctuary but ban the snapper fishing. i dont think that even making onee fish per boat would help as atm its one fish per person over 70cm and there is still people taking more than their fair share. unfortunately there is a minority that have been doin the wrong thing that affects us all. what about taking the size limits down like what shark bay did where any snapper over a certain size had to be returned to the water. That way the bigger spawning fish would have to be returned, anyone whos been out there knw there is few and far between smaller snapper around in the spawning season

Some didnt read 

"WA Marine Parks are multiple use area('s) which allows activities which are deemed compatible with the objectives of the Marine Park."

"The sound should be a snapper sanctuary and I'm far from a tree hugger!"

sanctuary, protection zone, marine park....what does it matter what you call it....

All I was suggesting was that by selecting the terminology "Marine park" might have better cognitions for protecting the Sound....

cheers for the thoughts