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Using Intervention Analysis To Evaluate The Trends In Release Rates Of Recreational Fisheries Following Extensive Management Changes, Brett Crisafulli, Ebenezer Afrifa-Yamoah, Ute Mueller, Karina Ryan, David Fairclough, Johnny Lo

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Changes to management of a fisheries resource are often required to ensure ongoing sustainability. However, such changes can sometimes lead to unintended effects such as increased release rates and associated post-release mortality. These effects may be highly variable between species and areas. Recreational fishing management changes were introduced on the west coast of Australia in 2009/10 to recover stocks of demersal scalefish. Key changes included reducing mixed species bag limits across management zones and increasing the minimum size limit for one species in some management zones. The restrictive catch limits resulted in increased release rates of key demersal species. However, …