2015-11-10 - P&O Agenda - Item 7, Attach 1 - Historical Ecology of the Noosa Estuary Fisheries

Any information or observations/perceptions of Noosa Estuary fisheries e.g.,
abundance, species and number caught, locations fished, number of hours fished,
were recorded and separated by method of fishing (line or net), species (oyster,
prawn, finfish, megafauna e.g., sharks, groper, sawfish), and whether the record
provided qualitative and/or quantitative information. Only catches or
information relating to the Noosa Estuary, River or Lakes system were recorded.
Catches outside of this area were not included, with the exception of fishing
activities that took place at the North Shore near Tewantin, or at the local reefs
within a few miles of the river mouth (e.g., Jew Shoal).


State government fisheries records did not often report upon the Noosa River
and Lakes system specifically, although the local oyster, prawn and mullet
fisheries were occasionally mentioned in early reports. Commercial data were
derived from three major sources: Department of Harbours and Marine Annual
Reports, Fish Board Annual Reports, and Department of Agriculture and
Fisheries commercial fisheries records (years as stated above). The method of
recording quantities of fish landed differs throughout the time series, and after
the dissolution of the Fish Board in 1982 annual landings were not recorded
again until 1990, leaving an eight-year data gap.


Fish landings were extracted for the Tewantin Fish Board from 1946-1981.
However, the few Fish Boards that existed along the coast meant that these
records do not differentiate between catches sourced from within and outside
the Noosa River. Other than Tewantin, the nearest Fish Board depots existed at
Tin Can Bay and Mooloolaba, so many of the fish processed at Tewantin would
have likely been sourced from locations such as the North Shore, possibly as far
away as Double Island Point, in addition to the Noosa River. These records do not
provide any indication of fishing effort (e.g., numbers of licenses or days fished),
hence are restricted to reporting fish landings only.


The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries holds commercial
landings and effort data for the years 1990-2014 (2015 catches are not yet
complete and are not included in this report). From 1990, landings and fishing


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