Demersal fish (hake)

The Group has developed and every four years updates the management procedure used to set catch limits for this fishery, whose value exceeds that of all the country's other fisheries combined. A recent initiative (part of the international ECOFISH programme) is investigating the extension of this approach to include Namibia, as the two countries may share hake populations to some extent. Another recent initiative is the extension of the hake assessment method to take explicit account of cannibalism and inter-species predation between the two species which comprise the hake resource.

People: R. Rademeyer, A. Ross-Gillespie

Demersal fish (other)

Bases have been developed to provide advice on the catch limit for the midwater fishery for horse-mackerel, as well as on restrictions for the by-catch of juvenile horse-mackerel in the pelagic fishery on the west coast. Other important resources assessed include kingklip off South Africa, and toothfish off the Prince Edward Islands.

People: A. Brandão, L. Furman, S. Johnston

Pelagic fish (anchovy, sardine, round herring)

Work is in progress refining the joint management procedure developed for the country's largest fishery in mass terms: the purse-seining of sardine and anchovy. This involves the translation of hydroacoustic estimates of abundance from research surveys into catch levels in a manner which attempts to regulate the by-catch of juvenile pilchard (which shoals with anchovy) to allow an enhanced yield from such sardine captured later in life.

People: C. de Moor

In-shore (rock lobster)

Management of the rock lobster resource off the West Coast has been rendered problematic by the onset of a period of slow growth of animals, whose continued duration cannot be predicted. Research aimed at developing a management procedure to regulate catch levels in a safe manner (given this uncertainty), and based primarily on the results of recently introduced fishery-independent surveys of resource abundance resulted in the recent adoption of a management procedure for this fishery. The application of Bayesian assessment techniques for the South Coast rock lobster resource is being pursued.

People: S. Johnston, A. Brandão

Other areas

Sole is assessed collaboratively with DAFF scientists. Evaluations have been made of the extent to which the activities of the pelagic fishery may be inhibiting recovery of the depressed penguin population.

People: W. Robinson, J. Glazer (DAFF)