Katherine Tattersall

Position: Student and Research Assistant

Organization: Univerisity of Tasmania

Description: Looking at fishery management issues on the wrong scale can hide evidence of inappropriate management until fisheries reach the brink of collapse. It is generally believed that major collapses in the world�s abalone stocks have been partly attributable to the process of serial depletion. GPS data allows us, for the first time, to look at abalone fishing activity on a scale that could possible detect serial depletion. Current stock management in Tasmania relies on CPUE information reported by block and sub-block by divers and this scale or reporting may not be appropriate to detect serial depletion in Tasmania, if it were to be occurring. Using GPS data collected from abalone boats I want to look at patterns of fishing behaviour demonstrated by Tasmanian abalone divers (fleet dynamics) and determine whether the complexity of these patterns of fishing intensity is detected by current catch reporting methods, or whether fishing intensity is focussed in a manner not detected by the current catch reporting.