Trawler company fights back with science

Super-trawler operator Seafish Tasmania has released a report by six scientists who say the facts have been skewed in the debate over the controversial FV Margiris.

Experts from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, the CSIRO and the South Australian Research and Development Institute have authored a background paper on the fishery set to be trawled by the 142-metre factory ship.

They say they have written the report because the debate over the Margiris has been marred by factual errors.

"On the one hand, we have a number of politicians and protest groups making claims about the fishery based on limited knowledge and here we have a detailed rebuttal by acknowledged experts," Seafish director Gerry Geen said in a statement.

"Who should the public believe?"

The report concludes that impacts on the fishery, including localised depletion of species, are unlikely.

The Devonport-bound Margiris will trawl for a quota of 18,000 tonnes in small pelagic fisheries between Western Australia and NSW.

The scientists say the catch quota is lower than scientific guidelines and the southeast Australian marine ecosystem is less vulnerable than others to depletion.

They say the mobility of the species makes depletion less likely and the broad area of the fishery will spread the catch.

They add that historical evidence from the South Australian sardine fishery, a smaller area with a larger catch, shows no negative impact.

Opposition to the Margiris continued with the Tasmanian Greens tabling a motion opposing it in state parliament on Tuesday.

The party also tabled a petition with the signatures of more than 3000 Tasmanians.

"The clear message from every single person who signed this petition is that this 142-metre long freezer-trawler vacuum-cleaner has no place fishing in our waters," spokesman Kim Booth said.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8519762/trawler-company-fights-back-with-science

The report concludes that impacts on the fishery, including localised depletion of species, are unlikely.

The Devonport-bound Margiris will trawl for a quota of 18,000 tonnes in small pelagic fisheries between Western Australia and NSW.

are UNLIKELY............18,000tonnes in small pelagic fisheries

I'm not sure how they are bringing the sardine industry into the equation when this industry is regulated by proven percentage rates of spawning juveniles, their quota is adapted by research into how the juvenile fish stock are handling the previous year of fishing.

To come in and just smash 18000 tonnes of pelagic fish and not have consequences is not sustainable, have a look at NZ when super trawlers went there, their industry collapsed within several years!!

but it's science

science has given us global warming beyond doubt

big bang theory and evolution as a given

are we supposed to believe science only when it suits us...?

or can we start to see it as a bought and payed for practice..

besides what kind of scientific conclusion is ''unlikely'' anyway

www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/4185150

We had a little discusion about this in the longboard forum a couple of weeks ago.

I 've posted some of it again here for anyone interested.

Tassiedevel said...

Wondering how many of you over there in Australia have been made aware of the ecological disaster heading our way . The Federal government has permitted the Dutch owned trawler the FV Margaris to operate out of Devonport with a license to catch 18 million kg of fish , and there is a chance this could double to to 36 million kg of fish . The Trawler will be netting for red bait and mackerel but obviously other species will be caught and killed during this process . But either way that is a lot of fish to take out of the ocean .
Taking that amount of fish out of the ocean has got to upset the ecological balance of sea life leading to all sorts of ongoing problems .eg. More shark attacks .

For you South Australians was reading this morning because of increasing anti trawler sentiment in Tassie the FV Margaris may instead be based in South Australia .

So far it seems to be local fishermen leading the fight to block this trawler , which is on it's way here now .There is a petition getting around , signed by Kelly Slatter which I guess we can access on line .

Some big words getting thrown around there.
Ecological disaster,
Super trawler,
you used the term 18 million Kgs, rather than 18 000 tons to make it sound more than it really is.

Some perspective is definately needed here.

I do not condone foreign vessels operating Australian waters. It is however nothing new. They have come and gone for decades, somtimes entire fleets. The tight constraints they work under here make it uneconomical for them, so they leave.

In the 80's I was chief engineer on "Maria Luisa". It was at that time the largest fishing purse seiner in the country. We left the bight after the tuna season and went to Tassie to catch Jack Mackerel, an untapped recourse then and still now. The fish was unloaded in Triabuna onto a floating fish meal processing barge.

We would leave Tribunna early in the morning and be back in the afternoon with a full load of 300 tons. This happened on average every second day, only thing restricting us was the weather and the processing capability of the processing plant.We worked along side 4 other smaller purse seiners. Didn't take long for this relatively very small fleet to rack up 18 000 tons.

We sometimes had marine biologists on board. I had my own concerns about our impact on the stocks, after wittnessing the decline of the southern blue fin so I spoke with them about it. They all said the same thing. "The good thing about pelargics like mackerel is their ability to recover from population decimations. Besides, What we were removing was immeasureable compared to the biomass. It is the most frolific scale fish on the planet".

The point I am trying to make is that 18 000 tons might sound like a lot to the layman, It is nothing on the grand scale of things.

Australian companies have for decades tried and failed to make a quid out of Makerel. Its just too low in value so it is still an untapped resource. I can compare this to the North sea Mackerel fishery where I worked for a while. It has been getting slammed by literaly hundreds of so called super trawllers, by several different countries for a hunded years. It is still now, With better management, a viable fishery.

So don't cry too much if the "Margaris" comes. Won't do any harm. If the Tasswegians don't want the bussiness then there are some excellent shore facilities in SA capable of servicing their requirements.

kiteboy dave said...

Looks like it's going to be stopped, all parties in Tassie parliament have come together to vote against it.

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-22/tas-parliament-opposes-super-trawler/4215594

Good ! ....convert her into a anti whaling vessel and donate to greenpeace

Had a few beers with a couple of mates who are merchant seamen earlier this evening and I raised the topic of the "Margiris".

They said that wherever these mega trawlers have been, nothing living is left.

Doesn't sound like a sustainable practice to me.

Well if its going to wipe out the oceans they better make sure they get their quota of GW and whales so we rape the oceans fairly.....

I understand what people would be thinking when they see images and media footage of the "F.V Margiris". Indeed it does look like a behemoth with a giant net capable of consuming every living thing.

The reality is that actual fishing is the secondary role for vessels such as this. Its primary purpose is in processing the catch.

The "Margiris" has a capacity to process 250 tons of small pelagic fish per day. Its not much to catch, it is a hell of a lot to process for human consumption. I have been aboard factory ships like the "margiris" so I have seen the huge array of machinery that is required to make this possible.
Access to this processing capability is the real reason this vessel is here. Every attempt at establishing a decent Mackerel fishery in Australia has failed because it is just too labour intensive without this equipment. Back in the day when we purse seined Mackerel and redbait around Tassie the fish meal plant we unloaded to had a similar daily capacity to the "Margiris". Big difference is that in those days it was converted into fish meal and fish oil. The meal was used for chook pellets and garden fertiliser, and the oil, probably the most putrid liquid I have ever seen, or smelt, was used to make womans cosmetics. If only they knew what is in the goop they spread on there face. At any rate, it was a low value end product.

It has been claimed in the media that the "Margiris" is twice as big as any other vessel to fish in Australian waters. I would question this. For decades now European factory ships, in particular the Norwegians, have been catching and processing Blue Whiting in the Antarctic. The product is known as "Sarumi". People would recognise it as "Crab sticks" or the fish cocktail meat they see in supermarkets. It might be claimed that these are not considered Australian waters for the sake of the argument but they sure as hell were when the Navy spent months chasing South American Patagonian Toothfish vessels all around the Southern hemisphere.

As reported in the PORT LINCOLN times.


By Kimberlee Meier
Sept. 4, 2012, midnight





.
PORT Lincoln is unlikely to become the base for the FV Margiris after becoming the first port in Australia to allow the super trawler to dock at its wharf.




The commercial fishing trawler has met all requirements to become an Australian flagged vessel, subject to commonwealth government approval, and was yesterday renamed the Abel Tasman.

Seafish Tasmania director Gerry Geen said yesterday the company had lodged an application for Brisbane to become the super trawler's home port.

“We have lodged the application for Brisbane to be its home port, however that does not mean it will be based in Brisbane ... it may not even visit Brisbane,” he said.

“The fact is that we intend to operate the vessel in the fishery stretching from the NSW to Queensland border to Western Australia and, of course, that includes Tasmania.

“During operation the Abel Tasman may visit a number of ports, including Devonport, as was our original plan, to offload our catch, resupply the ship and change work crews.”

Twenty of the vessel's employees flew to Port Lincoln from Devonport yesterday to board the vessel.

Mr Geen said once the trawler had been reflagged, Seafish would apply to have its quota transferred to the fishing vessel before it left Port Lincoln to fish in the Great Australian Bight.

He said a European net and excluder design expert would be on board the trawler for its first fishing trip, as well as an Australian Fisheries Management Authority by-catch mitigation expert.

“The design of the excluder follows more than 12 months' research including a video camera inside the nets during the operation of another of our vessels to study the behaviour of animals like dolphins and seals,” he said.

“It is designed to guide them to an exit from the net.”

The 142-metre vessel is scheduled to leave Port Lincoln at 6pm tonight.

Wildcatch Fisheries SA chairman Jonas Woolford said people should not let “ill informed emotion” cloud the issue of the science behind the FV Margiris fishing in Australian waters.

“I believe people are jumping to conclusions based on misinformation being thrown out there by desperate alarmist extremist groups that are intent on stopping fishing all together,” he said.

“Why anyone would want to shut down the harvesting of an under-utilised, totally sustainable, free range, organic, protein source with one of the lowest carbon and water footprints possible is just beyond me.”
Sardines have been highlighted as one of the fisheries potentially at risk from the trawler as it is a pelagic fishery, meaning the fish cannot be targeted in one specific spot and they are also a mid-water species - the same water depth the trawler aims for.

Mr Woolford said he did not believe the trawler posed a threat to South Australian fish resources.

However, he said if the vessel did not hold sardine quota to enable it to keep and process any it may catch then that could pose a risk to the local industry.

Mr Woolford said as mid-water trawling was targeted fishing, the only issue the FV Margiris should encounter was if it did not have a quota allocation for a species that may be schooling with or near its targeted species.

“There is always the risk that there may be an interaction with a threatened, endangered or protected species.





“While I am confident every effort will be made to avoid these there may be an entanglement and an unintended death,” he said.

“This will be thoroughly investigated and reported by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) observers on board and if determined appropriate action taken, including being ordered back to port and tied up.

“Many local fishermen will attest to the extremely cautionary approach taken by AFMA and this situation will not be any different

They are allowed to kill 10 seals a day if they get to the quota they have to move 50 miles out of the killing zone WTF keep it outa OZ waters....

Ocean trash [plastic] like on quantum last night, What a great job this ship could

do for the world if used for that. We could possibly employ a fleet of them and do

the world a lot of good [}:)]

www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/super-trawler-banned-from-fishing-in-australian-waters-20120911-25po8.html



ps. they renamed it the "Abel Tasman"