Netting in Tasmania

by Carl Hyland on 14 Nov 2011 Do you know that Tasmania is one of the only states of Australia that continues to allow recreational netting of fish species from around its Coastline?

This means that at holiday time, long weekends etc., netters’ can set their nets in estuaries, popular beaches and other zones all with the intention of taking their limits of fish. To be fair, there has been an ongoing survey of recreational netters in Tassie, but as at the time of writing, the assessment seems to have stagnated.

There are over 3,000 licensed recreational netters in this state and that doesn’t include the commercial sector of who can also continue to net estuaries and shallow bays to take important rec species such as sand flathead, blue warehou, whiting and many others.

The netting regulations are overseen by the Department Of Primary Industries Fisheries and Environment and this is the department who issues recreational licenses. I do believe that the Department has been buying out commercial licenses over the years and this in turn, has led to a small decrease netting amongst this sector.

http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/webpages/alir-4yg2cp?open

On the same hand, there are many who are calling for complete banning of gillnets in Tasmanian waters and thus decrease the amount of bycatch and damage that ‘ghost’ netting can cause. 'Ghost’ netting are nets that have broken free from anchor points and continue to catch fish up until the point where they was ashore or are fouled.
Here’s a recent article from Tasmania’s Mercury newspaper.

Calls to ban gill net use

An environmental impact study of gill-net fishing has sparked calls to ban recreational nets.

The State Government said the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute had started a three-year study on the biodiversity and by-catch implications of gill-netting.

The study will provide advice for a 2014 review of the scalefish fishery. Previous reviews resulted in changes such as a ban on leaving nets out at night. In the past two years, nine people were fined for breaching the night-netting rule and 23 gill nets were confiscated.

The Tasmanian Conservation Trust said a total ban on recreational nets was needed. 'It's about time Tasmania moved into the 20th century because that's when most other states banned gill-netting,' the trust's Christian Bell said.

Tasmanian Association for Recreational Fishing spokesman Mark Nikolai welcomed the study but said a ban would rob recreational fishers of a tradition. He said 90 per cent of the 10,000 recreational gill-net licences issued each year were only used at Christmas and Easter.

'They're not in the water five days a week,' Mr Nikolai said.
Birds Tasmania chairman Eric Woehler said recreational nets posed a threat to penguins and other diving birds. 'People have a perception of a traditional right but the world has moved on, we know more now than we did 20 or 30 years ago,' Dr Woehler said.

Recreational Fishing Tasmania spokesman Don Paton said amateur netting was sustainable and that seals had a bigger effect on fisheries. He said his organisation would address issues raised by the study, as it had in the past, by increasing net mesh size and adopting other measures.

The Tasmanian conservation trust had this to say:

The TCT wants to end recreational gill netting as well as recreational fishing with drop lines using more than two hooks. We believe that it is inappropriate to allow recreational fishers to use this type of commercial gear to target already overfished species. Use of this gear results in a huge waste of undersized and unwanted fish. Recreational gillnets also pose a great threat to protected species such as little penguins, dolphins and other seabirds and marine mammals.

The commercial sector has not got off free either, with a review started in 2009 and is ongoing;

Listed below are the current commercial licenses being used at this time;
http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/internnsf/WebPages/FSEN-8CC2V5?open

So netting, both commercial and recreational is undergoing scrutiny by all parties at this time and we shall keep you posted on any outcomes.