HMAP Dataset 3 SE Australian Trawl Fishery III Fish (various) landings and fishing effort, South East Australia, 1951-1957 Supporting Documentation Red Funnel Fishing Trawler Durraween Summary Dataset Title: SE Australian Trawl Fishery III HMAP Case Study: South East Australian Shelf and Slope Large Marine Ecosystem: 42: Southeast Australian Shelf Subject: Fish (various) landings and fishing effort, South East Australia, 1951-1957 Data Provider: Neil Klaer Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Division of Marine Research GPO Box 1538 Hobart, Tasmania 7001 Australia e-mail: neil.klaer@csiro.au Data Editor: Michaela Barnard, MHSC, University of Hull m.g.barnard@hull.ac.uk Extent: 57,246 records Keywords: fisheries statistics; History of Marine Animal Populations; trawling; overfishing; Australian fishing industry Citation (a) The dataset: please cite as follows: N. Klaer ed. ‘South East Australian Trawl Records, 1951-1957’ in M.G Barnard, & J.H Nicholls (comp.) HMAP Data Pages (www.hull.ac.uk/hmap) (b) Supporting documentation: please cite as follows: N. Klaer, ‘HMAP Dataset 3: SE Australian Trawl Fishery III, Supporting Documentation’, in M.G Barnard, & J.H Nicholls (comp.) HMAP Data Pages (www.hull.ac.uk/hmap) Acknowledgements: Funding for the initial data collection and processing was provided by Australia’s Fishing Industry Research and Development Corporation (FIRDC). Support was also provided by the Bureau of Resource Sciences (BRS) and CSIRO, while the data processing described in this document was undertaken as part of a project based at the University of Canberra. The data were edited and rendered compatible with the HMAP and OBIS schema by the HMAP Data Pages team at Hull. Contents Page 1. Introduction 1 2. Data, 1951-1957 2-7 (a) Data description 2 (b) Data quality 3 (c) Catch positions 4 (d) Species identification 5-6 (e) Total catch by year and vessel 6 (f) Catch by depth 7 (g) Catch by year and species 7 Final conversion format 8 References & outputs 9 1. Introduction On 28 November 1991, the New South Wales Department of Agriculture and Fisheries provided historical data relating to the South East Fishery (SEF) to the Bureau of Resource Sciences (BRS) in accordance with the Fishing Industry Research and Development Corporation (FIRDC)-funded ‘historic SET catch data’ project. The data were originally collected by CSIRO and handed over to NSW Fisheries when CSIRO ceased work in the 1960s on what was then known as the ‘South East Trawl Fishery’. These data cover the periods 1918-1923, 1937-1943 and 1952-1957. No documentation exists for these data except for a simple description of the data field names. This document describes the processing carried out, and the assumptions made, to convert the data into a format suitable for inclusion in the Australian Fishing Zone Information System (AFZIS). This format, in turn, was adapted to render the data compatible with the HMAP/OBIS schema. Data: 1951-1957 (a) Data Description The accompanying field description was as follows: Table 1: 1951-1957 Data Description Field Width Position Type Comments trip information vessel-year 24 1-24 A * vessel code 2 25-26 N trip number 3 27-29 N depart date 6 30-35 N (yymmdd) depart time 4 36-39 N (24 hr clock) return date 6 40-45 N (yymmdd) return time 4 46-49 N (24 hr clock) No. of hauls 2 50-51 N No. Of species 2 52-53 N # last trip 1 54 N (blank,0,1) % species 1 2 55-56 N * sp 1 catch 8 57-64 N (baskets) species 2 2 65-66 N * sp 2 catch 8 67-74 N (baskets) . . . . . . species 10 2 145-146 N * sp 10 catch 8 147-154 N (baskets) haul information haul No. 2 155-156 N date 6 157-162 N (yymmdd) initial time 4 163-166 N (24 hr clock) final time 4 167-170 N (24 hr clock) area name 6 171-176 N area code 2 177-178 A initial depth 3 179-181 N (fathoms) final depth 3 182-184 N (fathoms) species 1 2 185-186 N * species 1 catch 6 187-192 N (baskets) . . . species 8 2 241-242 N * species 8 catch 6 243-248 N (baskets) Notes: A – Alphabetic; N – Numeric; * - Refer to code lists; # - No. Of species recorded in species catch (1)-(10); % - ‘1’ denotes last trip for the year; 1 basket = 70lb (b) Data Quality A total of 21,120 individual haul records were available for the 1951-1957 period. A summary of the completeness of important fields is given in Table 17. Table 2: Data Completeness 1951-1957 Field Records % of total depth fished 19,345 91.60 species catch wt 21,120 100.00 position 0 0.00 vessel name 21,120 100.00 date 21,120 100.00 Note: depth applies to initial or final depth; position is both latitude and longitude; 100% of records had an encoded fishing ground (c) Catch Positions No hauls had latitude or longitude recorded. The six character fishing ground code was converted to estimated catch positions as described for the 1937-43. Figure 1 maps the resulting estimated catch positions. Figure 1: Estimated Catch Positions, 1951-1957 (d) Species Identification Two letter species codes were used in the data. The meaning of the codes was not documented, and interpretation was initially provided by Kevin Rowling of NSW Fisheries. This interpretation was supplemented with the following information from Roughley (1916) on trawler catches off NSW in 1915 and 1916: ‘The total weight of fish captured from the commencement of operations, 7th June, 1915, till the end of July, 1916, was 2,326,481 lb. The species captured in greatest abundance, and arranged in that order, are as follows:-- 1. Tiger or Deep-sea Flathead (Neoplatycephalus macrodon). 2. Sharp-beaked Gurnard (Pterygotriglia polyommata). 3. John Dory (Zeus faber). 4. Yellow leatherjacket (Pseudomonacanthus ayraudi). 5. Short Boarfish (Zanclistius elevatus). 6. Nannygai (Trachichthodes affinis). 7. Jackass Fish (Dactylosparus macropterus) 8. Morwong (Dactylosparus carponemus) 9. Barracouta (Thyrsites atun) 10. Thetis fish (Neosebastes thetidis) 11. Snapper (Pagrosomus auratus) 12. Red Gurnard Perch (Helicolenus percoides).’ Modern equivalents: 1 = tiger flathead (Neoplatycephalus richardsoni) 2 = latchet (Pterygotriglia polyommata) 4 = chinaman leatherjacket (Nelusetta ayraudi) 5 = long-finned boarfish (Zanclistius elevatus) 6 = redfish (Centroberyx affinis) 7 = jackass morwong (Nemadactylus macropterus) 8 = blue morwong (Nemadactylus douglasi) 11 = snapper (Chrysophrys auratus) 12 = ocean perch (Helicolenus percoides) May and Maxwell (1986), others as historically listed Table 3: Species Codes in the 1951-1957 Data, and Assumed Identification Code Name CSIRO code wt (kg) records DO dory 264000 27,890 309 FL tiger flathead 296001 1,118,890 13,672 GU latchet 288006 77,380 890 JD john dory 264004 21,470 415 JW jewfish 354001 3,496 15 LA latchet 288006 4,009 31 LJ chinaman leatherjacket 465006 206,651 1,110 MA mackerel 337002 6,097 6 MI mixed 999999 699,981 9,124 MO jackass morwong 377003 2,863,055 15,483 NA redfish 258003 1,135,721 5,460 RA rays 31000 160,826 1,818 SA unknown SA 1 735 17 SD silver dory 264002 2,605 13 SH shark 18000 406,775 5,913 SN snapper 353001 17,175 360 (e) Total Catch by Year and Vessel Table 4: Total Retained Catch and Number of Hauls by Year Year Total Catch (kg) Hauls 51 2,128 6 52 1,259,720 3,309 53 1,427,085 4,701 54 1,091,219 3,398 55 1,117,610 3,282 56 1,000,446 3,328 57 845,776 3,096 Total catch and number of hauls by vessel for the 1951-1957 data is given in Table 5. Discarded catch was not recorded. Table 5: Catch and Number of Hauls by Vessel Vessel Retained wt Discard wt Operations Alfie Cam 39,192 0 131 Goolgwai 410,235 0 1,380 Korowa 691,860 0 2,026 Maldanna 1,716,452 0 4,910 Mary Cam 44,883 0 171 Matong 1,634,927 0 4,934 Moona 1,464,698 0 5,197 Mulloka 741,737 0 2,371 (f) Catch by Depth Total catches by depth interval (0=0-20) are given in Table 6. Depths have been converted from fathoms to metres. All recorded depths were within the ranges shown and no adjustments for mis-recording were made. Table 6: Total Retained Catch Weight by Depth Interval Depth (m) Retained wt (kg) Discard wt (kg) Hauls 40 4,671 0 22 60 280,297 0 992 80 700,832 0 2,316 100 1,025,131 0 3,157 120 2,426,664 0 7,610 140 1,618,564 0 4,908 160 98,845 0 279 180 11,278 0 40 200 6,416 0 20 220 572 0 1 (g) Catch by Year and Species Table 7: Total Retained Catch by Species by Year Code Species 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 DO dory 0 192 1,306 16,404 9,988 0 0 FL tiger flathead 1,398 299,378 239,326 193,149 150,900 155,555 79,184 GU latchet 0 19,749 10,439 4,650 10,240 11,917 20,385 JD john dory 0 8,610 5,295 2,268 2,043 1,464 1,790 JW jewfish 0 0 0 0 0 2,732 764 LA latchet 0 672 3,337 0 0 0 0 LJ chinaman leatherjacket 0 80,614 43,271 13,199 22,826 31,387 15,354 MA mackerel 0 6,097 0 0 0 0 0 MI mixed 160 150,782 149,603 97,434 90,045 110,132 101,825 MO jackass morwong 478 398,859 497,891 481,549 562,068 489,696 432,514 NA redfish 0 180,896 348,210 207,601 179,204 114,507 105,303 RA rays 0 17,775 47,601 35,834 32,651 19,270 7,695 SA unknown sa 0 0 735 0 0 0 0 SD silver dory 0 2,605 0 0 0 0 0 SH shark 96 93,230 80,013 39,814 54,966 61,085 77,571 SN snapper 0 1,727 1,912 669 4,121 4,111 4,635 3. Final Conversion Format All data were converted into the following format. This is suitable for loading into the AFZIS system without the need for further data manipulation. The files were in dBase III databases, and have been converted into the HMAP schema. Field Field Name Type Width Dec 1 BOAT_NAME Character 15 2 DATE Numeric 6 3 HAUL_NO Numeric 2 4 OP_NO Numeric 2 5 ST_TIME Numeric 4 6 EN_TIME Numeric 4 7 ST_DEP Numeric 4 8 EN_DEP Numeric 4 9 LAT Numeric 6 2 10 LONG Numeric 6 2 11 EFFORT Numeric 6 2 12 RET_WT Numeric 8 13 DIS_WT Numeric 8 14 TOT_WT Numeric 8 ** Total ** 84 Field Field Name Type Width Dec 1 BOAT_NAME Character 15 2 DATE Numeric 6 3 HAUL_NO Numeric 2 4 OP_NO Numeric 2 5 SPECIES Character 2 6 SP_CODE Numeric 6 7 WT Numeric 8 ** Total ** 41 4. References Colefax, A.N. 1934. A preliminary investigation of the natural history of the tiger flathead (Neoplatycephalus macrodon) on the south-eastern Australian coast. I. Proc. Linn. Soc. NSW. 59, 71-79. May, J.L. and Maxwell, J.G.H. 1986. Field guide to Trawl Fish from Temperate Waters of Australia. CSIRO Division of Fisheries Research. 492pp. Roughly, T.C. 1916. Fishes of Australia and Their Technology. William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, Sydney. 296pp. 5. Outputs The data have been used to inform a number of analyses, including: N.L. Klaer, ‘Steam trawl catches from south-eastern Australia from 1918 to 1957: trends in catch rates and species composition’ Marine and Freshwater Research, 52(4), 399-410. Abstract: Haul-by-haul steam trawler catch and effort data for 1918–23, 1937–43 and 1952–57, which cover a large portion of the history of steam trawling in the Australian South East Fishery, were examined in detail for the first time. There were 64371 haul records in total. The catch-rate for all retained catch combined shows a strong decline overall, with a brief recovery during World War II, probably due to increased retention of previously discarded species. The fishing fleet moved to more distant fishing grounds and deeper waters as the catch-rate declined. The catch-rates of the main commercial species followed a similar pattern in a number of regions within the fishery. The catch-rate of the primary target species – tiger flathead (Neoplatycephalus richardsoni) – dropped considerably from the early, very high, catch-rates. Chinaman leatherjacket (Nelusetta ayraudi) and latchet (Pterygotrigla polyommata) – species that were apparently abundant in the early years of the fishery, virtually disappeared from catches in later years. The appearance of greater catches of jackass morwong (Nemadactylus macropterus), redfish (Centroberyx affinis) and shark/skate during the war and afterwards was probably due to increased retention of catches of these species. The disappearance of certain species from the catch may be due to high fishing pressure alone, or to a combination of fishing pressure, changes in the shelf habitat possibly caused by the trawl gear, and environmental fluctuations. Keywords: fisheries management, south east trawl fishery, CPUE, historical, steam trawler, stock assessment. HMAP Dataset 3: SE Australian Trawl Fishery III HMAP Data Pages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/hmap/ HMAP Dataset 3: SE Australian Trawl Fishery III HMAP Data Pages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/hmap 9 HMAP Data Pages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/hmap HMAP Data Pages: http://www.hull.ac.uk/hmap/