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

Summary

The Noosa Estuary and Lakes have been exploited for centuries, with early
accounts suggesting abundant fish and shellfish stocks. Oysters, other shellfish
and finfish were an important resource for the Kabi Kabi Traditional Owners,
and they traded and sold fish to the early settlers. The earliest available fishery
records show that Noosa oysters were being transported to Brisbane and
beyond by the late 19th century. By the turn of the 20th century the net fisheries
were providing significant quantities of fish to the Gympie and Brisbane markets.
Many of these fisheries, with the exception of oyster, continue today. The
recreational fishery also commenced early on in the written history of the region,
with the Tewantin region lauded as far away as Sydney for its abundant fish
stocks and scenic beauty. These factors led to rapid increases in population and
tensions between commercial and recreational fishers as early as the 1920s. As
the commercial and recreational fisheries increased, the Noosa oyster fishery
was in quiet decline, becoming commercially extinct by the 1930s.


While oysters have greatly declined from historical levels, data on other
commercial fisheries suggest that landings were highly variable from year to
year, a feature that remains in the contemporary fisheries. The lack of
information on historical fishing effort, and in some cases a lack of data to the
species level, makes it almost impossible to draw any conclusions about changes
in population size from the historical record. Moreover, some of the commercial
stocks exploited within the Noosa region are migratory; species such as mullet
are exploited along the coast from New South Wales and north. However, time
series data are also available for recreational fishing activities within the Noosa
Estuary, and suggest a decline in catch rates for the most popular estuarine
species throughout the 20th century. These data depict a gradual decline rather
than any sudden change. This could be related to a number of factors including
urban development, loss of fish habitat (including oyster beds) and increasing
fishing pressure (recreational and commercial). Given that the time series ends
in 1980, it is unlikely to be due to changes in targeting behaviour of fishers,



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