R&D News : Fisheries Research and Development Corporation FRDC

IN the previous R&D News seafood innovator PAUL CATALANO discussed the strategy underpinning Seafood Secrets, his revolutionary retail outlet in Perth. Here, he challenges industry to use optimum freezing and packaging technology to lock in quality for the consumer – and lift profit.

What does ‘fresh’ mean to the seafood consumer? Is seafood fresh if it is chilled? Or frozen? For that matter, is ‘fresh’ a term the Australian seafood industry should stress?

“No,” says Paul Catalano, a 37 year veteran of seafood processing, wholesaling and exporting – and now a retailer also.

“In seafood it doesn’t mean ‘yes, it was caught yesterday’. We define fresh by bacteria levels – how else can we do it?

So it’s about seafood safety and consistency and we must make sure these are givens that consumers shouldn’t have to think about. Besides, they don’t have the evaluation skills.”

So his one-of-a-kind retail outlet Seafood Secrets sells all its products pre-packed, labelled either ‘chilled’ or ‘frozen’, with conservative use-by dates.

And he believes the major challenge for the domestic seafood sector lies in educating itself and consumers in the quality, convenience and economic benefits of ‘frozen’. That frozen can be good – if.

“If it’s the right species, frozen at optimum freshness, packaged well, not stored too long in a home freezer and thawed right.

“We’re missing a huge market segment here. Most home freezers contain properly frozen white meat, plus red meat.

But no one is happy with home frozen seafood, because no home freezer can freeze it properly – the consumer experience here isn’t good.

“Similarly for industry. Its perception is that commercially freezing local fish devalues it, putting it into a lower market segment where it competes with imports.

“So nobody wants to do it. They’d rather sell poor quality ‘fresh’ fish.

“We’re killing our industry by not freezing fish properly and educating the consumer to buy it optimally frozen in meal-size packs, to use out of the home freezer as a convenience food, just like frozen chicken.”

Then there is Mega-omega, for people who want to maximise the health benefits of eating seafood.

“The industry is having a picnic riding on the healthy seafood bandwagon – omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids – but consumers generally don’t know which species have what levels.

“Mega-omega identifies seafood containing at least 400mg of omega-3 per 100g.”

Paul Catalano made his pioneering move with frozen seafood after a disappointing fact-finding tour of Europe and Asia that, with some Japanese exceptions, convinced him no one was retailing it well.

Customers love it

“The consumers who shop with us love what we do. Total converts. They love our frozen fish. But there’s still not enough of them.”

Seafood Secrets never thaws frozen products. Paul Catalano, while critical of supermarkets’ and some fresh fish retailers’ ‘thawed for your convenience’ approach, nevertheless concedes that his purist, up-front stance denies him the business of consumers who equate ‘frozen’ with second-rate.

“Why are they walking away? Our industry needs to do some serious work communicating the benefits of ‘frozen’ to our consumers. I think FRDC too should see this as a national priority. Millions have been invested in harvest and post-harvest R&D, but very little in retail.

“Sure, unfrozen fresh is best. But the distribution chain is too long and too expensive. And it’s not just the seafood industry that’s let the consumer down. Why can’t we buy professionally-frozen, packaged cuts of red meat from the butcher?

“They sell bulk meat to people they know are going to freeze it sub-optimally in home freezers when they should be selling it to them properly frozen. “How much more cheaply could we supply optimally-frozen meat and fish? Let’s find out.

“For the seafood industry I believe it’s an avenue to deliver a better product at a more competitive price and improve our commercial viability by doing so.”

MORE: Paul Catalano, phone 08 9379 3044; email paul.c@catalanoseafoods.com.au; www.seafoodsecrets.com.au

SBT at your store soon?

How long before you can rock down to your nearest seafood outlet and select your favourite Japanese-style cut of prime southern bluefin tuna?

“I can’t say how long, but I think it’s inevitable,” said David Ellis, Research Manager of the Tuna Boat Owners Association of South Australia (TBOASA).

“A lot more Australians eat sushi and sashimi now – but we need to make our kids aware of the product today, so they recognise what fantastic seafood it is and it becomes part of their culture and generates a strong local demand for tuna.”

For an industry facing increased competition on the Japanese market, developing an informed Australian market that understands the Japanese cuts appears to be a logical step.

“The necessary sensory evaluation of the different cuts of our tuna has already been brought back from Japan by Phil Thomas of our product quality area. It’s just a question of deciding to go to the next stage.

“I’m really enthusiastic about where our R&D is taking us – it’s all starting to come together for us now,” David Ellis said.

“To a great extent southern bluefin tuna aquaculture has been built on big ideas and fast engineering.

“How big an idea was throwing a net around that first school of free-ranging SBT and towing them back here in a cage?” he asks of the transformational fishery that annually cages and feeds its annual quota of wild fish till its weight almost doubles, resulting in 8,300t of gilled and gutted SBT, worth about $200m on the premium Japanese market.

“To get so rapidly to this point required vision, engineering skills, luck and core research.

Hard yards now

“Now, through the Aquafin CRC and FRDC, we are starting to synthesise a lot of information, both wide-ranging and detailed.”

“And we have to. We have international competitors now and we need the R&D to preserve our cutting edge and make our product shine,” David Ellis said.

Recent environmental research, he said, indicated that the fishery’s aquaculture systems were environmentally sound. Health, physiology and metabolism research showed the tuna were healthy and robust.

Seacage telemetry equipment was transmitting real time data on weather and water conditions. New net-fouling management techniques were being assessed.

A Formubait computer model had been developed to ensure the mix of feed baitfish delivered optimal nutrient levels and a further proving trial was imminent. Advances in understanding the role of baitfish and vitamins led to increased shelf life.

Product R&D had shown that residues reduced through the farming cycle and were significantly lower than World Health Organization limits. And the industry was investigating the pros and cons of longer term grow-out.

R&D provides tools

“The R&D to date has provided the tools to allow us to develop definitive answers on this issues.

“With long-term holding for example, it’s easy to do the analysis because we know what to look for in terms of environment, production, health and flesh quality. So we can demonstrate to industry, based on fish-tag data – growth and so on – just what the economic parameters are likely to be for a 12-month holding season.

“So at present it’s mostly putting ideas from all areas of the industry through the R&D mincer to deliver that next essential
incremental gain.

“Everybody is looking at ways to improve. All 12 companies are involved in R&D to some degree.

“And the focus has changed. In 1996 the R&D holy grail was manufactured feed. Then SBT propagation – no longer a priority in our scenario.

“But huge leaps aren’t possible any more. And much of our ground-breaking R&D has been picked up and used by our overseas competitors and now our need is R&D that develops our industry– but not every industry everywhere.

“As we consider the priorities, two things worth remembering: First, we’ve come a long way in a short time and it wouldn’t have been do-able without FRDC and the CRC. “Second, it’s not always the core R&D direction that delivers the benefits.”

Ab divers as managers

Abalone divers in three states are training in stock assessment so they can take the lead in managing their fisheries on a reef-by-reef basis.

Principal Investigator Rob Day of the University of Melbourne says because abalone mature at different sizes from reef to reef, current management that applies minimum legal lengths regionally may protect all breeding stock in one location, yet allow them all to be harvested at another.

In every Australian abalone fishery, he says, areas of lost productivity are increasing because fishery managers do not have sufficient funds for reef-by-reef management.

So in FRDC project 2005/024 his research team, in collaboration with industry and managers in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, is developing tools to allow commercial divers gather the information necessary to micro-manage their fisheries and reverse stock decline.

The package will include training in abalone biology and stock dynamics, the use of indicators and the way the indicators relate to stock assessment. Rapid appraisal techniques developed by biologist Jeremy Prince have been used by western Victorian divers to establish individual reef codes since 2002 and by Victorian central zone divers since 2004.

Appraisal workshops will be held in the other two states to allow divers in each develop their own techniques for assessing reefs and contributing to the collaborative decision-making necessary for effective reef-scale management.

Experienced abalone biologists will help them understand how shell parameters relate to fecundity at sites with different maximum legal sizes; and density, growth rate and other characteristics will be determined at selected reefs in each harvest zone.

Rob Day says the collection of this and other biological information will also provide baseline data for a powerful, long-term study of the level of parental stock required to maximise long-term harvests. He says divers at the workshops will experiment with graphical simulations to visualise the potential effects of reef-scale industry management decisions, using data from the selected reefs.

In Victoria, a secure website will give divers real time and historical catch information for each reef area, so they can make sound decisions on where and when to fish. This and a memorandum of under-standing signed with Fisheries Victoria will also allow the progress of the proposed fine-scale management to be closely monitored.

The initiative to rebuild abalone stocks and optimise harvests will require a high level of cooperation between industry, researchers and managers, Rob Day says. He says some Tasmanian divers have also experimented with reef-scale size limits, but the Tasmanian Abalone Council believes full-scale adoption would be too complex to introduce under its current management plan.

Bill bothers Recfish

Recfish Australia has asked the Senate to reject a national animal welfare bill introduced by the Australian Democrats, saying its enactment would jeopardize recreational fishing.

In a submission to the Senate Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs, Recfish described the bill as emotive, unworkable, extremely restrictive and a complete contrast to the Democrats’ publicly-stated position on recreational fishing.

MORE: John Harrison, phone 07 3356 1111;
email ceo@recfish.com.au; www.recfish.com.au

Will Mure to DEH: Why?

The sign outside reads: Fresh whole blue-eye $10.90kg. Filleted free. Inside, customers lining the fishmonger counter three-deep make their selection from fish held in an ice slurry, then wait patiently as a small team of filleters, augmented by boss Will Mure, separate flesh from heads and frames.

Clearly, the family’s two automatic longliners have delivered an above-average catch of blue-eye trevalla, the fish on which Mures Tasmania has based its success.

“This entire catch is from areas that Department of Envronment and Heritage (DEH) intends to close to commercial fishing,” Will Mure said.

“Two of the proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) – Banks Strait and the Tasman Fracture – contain our most productive fishing grounds. We catch up to 60t of our quota from them each year. Our environmental impact is minimal. We use 7mm line and mid-water floats, so most of our hooks are suspended above the bottom.

“How can DEH give the green light to mining exploration and development, yet close these same areas to longlining?”

Will Mure estimates the DEH proposal threatens to cut the family’s vertically-integrated business by 20 to 30 per cent, but the damage to the Mures brand will cut much deeper.

“If DEH gets its wish we’ll try to catch our quota in less productive areas, but that will require more effort and push up our costs and the price of the seafood we sell.

“It will be riskier, because we and other operators no longer will have the protection Tasmania’s east coast provides for our winter fishing in the proposed Banks Strait MPA.

“Trying to catch our quota from a smaller, less productive area would also deplete stocks rather than sustain them, so further quota cuts would seem inevitable. That would hit every part of our business.

“An option then would be to get rid of the Kiella, our smaller boat. With it would go $1m a year in turnover, the jobs of five crew and further jobs in processing and retail.

“We would probably try to import quality fish from New Zealand to plug the product gap.

But then our costs would rise and we would lose the unique Tasmanian character that contributes so much to this business and, more generally, to Tasmanian tourism.

“And in all truth I can’t identify a single thing that would be gained – for us, for Australia, or the marine environment.”

Still a blue-eye business

THE Mures’ business logo is a seahorse, but that’s probably because the blue-eye trevalla which has always been its speciality doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it tastes.

The association began in the 1970s when Will Mure’s father George became the first full-time catcher of blue-eye, which he hooked on droplines.

George and wife Jill became innovators on sea and shore, building the Mellicent,- the first

Hobart without a visit to this establishment would be like going to Paris and not taking a look at the Eiffel Tower.
Leo Schofield, Sydney Morning Herald

of what became a line of fast, planing-hull dropliners and value-adding the catch by opening the family’s first, hugely-successful, seafood restaurant in a converted stone colonial cottage in Battery Point. In the 1980s a new, expanded fishmonger-restaurant complex

Lovers of seafood should try the Crowded Clam Chowder at the Oyster Bar at the Plaza. For seafood, it’s second only to Mures in Hobart.
Worldly Advice, Citicorp

was built at Victoria Dock on the Hobartwaterfront, where fishing boats berth alongside.

This (Mures fishmongers) is THE place to buy blue-eye.
Tasmanian Food Lover’s Guide

Today the business comprises two longliners, a processing factory at Glenorchy, a value-added line of soups and gourmet products, a fishmonger’s, three seafood restaurants and a sushi bar.

Hooks’ triple benefits

“I guess you could say we are passionate advocates of the benefits of hook fishing,” says Will Mure, formerly skipper of the Kiella, but shore-bound since the sudden death of his father George in 2003.

Originally a blue-eye and pink ling dropliner, the 16m Kiella about three years ago became the first boat in Australia to install new automatic longline technology developed by Scandinavian industry leader Mustad.

In 2004 it was joined by the purpose-built 22m longliner Diana, named for Will’s grandmother.

“Third - and of great importance to us - it maximises quality for our customers.”

The fish the Mures catch come aboard one at a time in prime condition and are quickly bled before rapid chilling in an ice slurry.

Then they are packed in flaked ice in an insulated hold for the passage back to Hobart.

“Automatic longlining has increased our efficiency without sacrificing quality or environmental principles,” says Will Mure, “and allowed us to target additional species such as ocean perch, ribaldo, hapuku and striped trumpeter.

“And so far we have made more than one million longline hook-sets without harming a single seabird.”

Jane joins ARC

After four years as a projects manager with FRDC, Jane Graham has joined the Australian Research Council’s programs team. At FRDC she played a key role in running the Seafood Industry Development Fund and in establishing R&D partnerships.

This has resulted in collaborative new projects such as a whole-of-estuary analysis to be made by Land and Water Australia and the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute.

Little fish, big future

Tens of millions of dollars are being invested in the Port Lincoln-based sardine fishery, from catching and onboard handling to shore-based value-adding and market development.

Despite a recent quota cut, it remains Australia’s biggest fishery by volume and its access rights are among the most tightly-held.

Just eight operators own all 14 licences. Each licence currently comprises 1818t of individual transferable quota - an interim figure, down from last year’s 3650t, pending a review of the fishery science. The self-made individuals who sign the cheques could seat themselves around a single table.

They include Sam Sarin, founder of Australian Fishing Enterprises (AFE), the nation’s biggest quota owner in the southern bluefin tuna (SBT) and South East trawl and longline fisheries.

AFE owns four of the 14 entitlements and has signalled its confidence in sardine development by spending more than $20m to build the 47m purse seiner Apollo S and equip its smaller Maria Luisa with plate freezers.

“The Apollo’s refrigerated brine tank will hold 320t of sardines, but an average night’s fishing is more like 100t-120t,” said Christian Pyke, AFE’s Resource and Planning Manager.

“The Maria Luisa can freeze all or part of its catch. Its plate freezers allow sardines to be transferred in blocks to our new onshore freezing facility at optimum quality to guarantee continuity of supply to the tuna farms.”

For both vessels, dedicated sardine fishing begins after they have caught AFE’s SBT quota in the Great Australian Bight.

Sardines as seafood

Like other sardine quota owners expanding their businesses along similar lines, AFE sees great potential in sardines as seafood and has taken its first steps to develop markets in Australia and overseas.

“We’ve got our individually quick frozen (IQF) fish on restaurant menus in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and we’re looking to sell a modest 200t in 20kg IQF packs in our first year,” said Christian Pyke.

These fish are caught by AFE’s smaller vessels – up to 25m – each aiming for a nightly catch of about 20t, with the seafood component gently lifted from the nets by low volume pumps and transferred quickly ashore for snap-freezing in salted brine at minus 10°C.

Major export potential?

“It’s important to understand that seafood buyers in Australia and abroad know this fish as a sardine – which it is. So that’s the way we’ve got to market it.

The recent decision of the Fish Names Committee to abandon ‘pilchard’ and make ‘sardine’ the official marketing name will really help consumers relate to our product,” he said.

The rationale for directing as much of the catch as possible to the seafood sector is irresistible. As tuna feed, the fish are worth perhaps 45c/kg to the catchers; as seafood, $3/kg.

“The increase in investment so far has added another socio-economic dimension to Port Lincoln, with benefits we share.

“For example AFE’s ability to provide year round work for its purse seiners on SBT, sardines and skipjack tuna has allowed us to attract the best people to crew them, because we’re able to offer a career.

“These developments are all happening on the back of good R&D – from the initial daily egg production method of sardine stock assessment to the current FRDC project assessing ecological impacts.

“R&D is our floor of confidence. If the current scientific review results in our TAC being restored, as we expect, the fishery’s response will be constrained only by our ability to develop new value-added markets and the ability of South Australia to supply the necessary infrastructure – for example there’s no additional bulk electricity available at Port Lincoln currently.”

By 2010, Christian Pyke believes the fishery will still be SBT aquaculture’s major source of protein – ‘cheaper than manufactured feeds and reducing reliance on imports’.

The big 2010 goal, he believes, is to make sardines one of Australia’s highest-volume seafood exports, taking advantage of the increasing global demand for marine-sourced protein.

“Think of China and other developing economies and the potential there for Australian canned sardines that’ll take rough handling, don’t need refrigeration and have a virtually indefinite shelf life.

“And imagine the benefits the canning lines would offer to a fishing port like ours.”

MORE: Christian Pyke, phone 08 8682 4438; email c.pyke@afe.net.au; www.afe.net.au

Recs tag 500,000 fish

Recreational fishers Australia-wide have tagged and released more than half a million fish in the Austag program coordinated by ANSA, the Australian National Sportfishing Association Ltd.

The total tagged by the end of 2004-05 exceeded 517,000, ANSA says in its annual report.

More than 400,000 were caught and released in Queensland, where the initiative started in 1986 as Suntag. More than 100,000 were barramundi.

Austag says recaptures of tagged fish Australia-wide have reached 37,500 – about 7.3 per cent.

However in Queensland the recapture rate has fallen steadily in the past seven years from 9.5 per cent to 4.8 per cent, indicating that fishing effort there is falling.

The average Suntag trip now is 5.6 hours and involves 1.7 fishers who catch an average 9.4 fish and keep one. In 2004-05 it took Suntag members an average 1.07 hours to catch a fish, compared to 0.95 hours in 1999-00 – an increase of 12 per cent.

The latest Suntag statistics also confirm the superiority of lures over bait to avoid deep hooking and thus enhance the

survival of fish returned to the water. Its figures indicate 8.3 per cent of fish caught on bait are hooked in the throat or gut. With lures fewer than one per cent were hooked in the throat and none was gut-hooked.

These figures are based on the capture of more than 23,000 fish in Queensland, representing a broad range of species.

Similar evidence is now being collected in Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

Austag says the growing range of R&D projects it supports demonstrates that the involvement of fishers improves data collection and the extension and use of R&D results by the recreational sector.

It says it expects this involvement to increase in 2005-06 following the establishment of a steering committee, in collaboration with FRDC, that has identified national funding priorities for recreational R&D.

MORE: Bill Sawynock, phone 07 4928 6133; email infofish@zbcom.net; www.info-fish.net

Make MPAs fit ESD frame?

What does the average fisher think of industry’s achievement in establishing a national ESD framework that lets each fishery show how it achieves sustainability?

“Bugger-all, probably,” responds Rick Fletcher, leader of the team that designed the Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) structure.

Prodded, he concedes: “Well, it’s given that fisher a mechanism for his fishery to demonstrate compliance with the Australian Government’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in the most efficient and safe way possible.

“Without,” he adds, “being asked to do anything unreasonable.” For export fisheries in particular, compliance with the EPBC Act is not optional.

Fail and your exemption to export fish – the Act classes them as native wildlife – may be withdrawn.

By establishing a national framework, Rick Fletcher’s FRDC-funded initiative has helped give the nation’s fisheries the protection of addressing ESD criteria in a consistent manner, regardless of their location or the species they target. Hence safety and reasonableness. No single fishery can be picked off by having to perform against criteria that don’t apply to it.

This delivers efficiency too and this is backed and refined by Seafood Services Australia Ltd’s environmental management system (EMS) packages, which fisheries modify to meet their individual needs.

And yes, Rick Fletcher acknowledges, demonstrating ESD performance has also shown fisheries, industry associations, companies and individual fishers they may be able to turn compliance to commercial advantage – whether it’s by seeking better prices through product certification, or protecting access rights by showing consumers and local communities that sustainable fishing is an independently-assessed reality, not a pious promise.

ESD’s next stage

What comes next are three further essentials to be factored into the sustainability mix:

“I believe the National Oceans Office (NOO) could benefit by adopting many of the processes developed in the ESD framework for use in the Australian Government’s marine protected area (MPA) initiative, because the framework already contains many of the issues and criteria they must address,” Rick Fletcher said.

Four MPA steps

He said four steps were necessary to make MPA implementation consistent with an ESD approach:

1. Set the objectives – establish what the participants would like the MPA to achieve and examine what is achievable.

2. Run a thorough risk assessment in the relevant bio-region on all activities, including fishing, against achieving the agreed objectives.

3. Develop management procedures to deal with the significant risks and opportunities identified.

“It’s essential,” he said, “to make sure MPA-related strategies clearly address defined and measurable objectives and, above all, deliver a benefit not already being obtained.

“For example, if a proposed benefit is to allow tourists to interact in a new and unique way with marine species – that’s an appropriate outcome.

“But if the primary proposed benefit is to ‘recover’ a targeted fish stock for which there are already adequate systems in place, that’s probably not justified. It may cause more problems than it will solve, particularly for some quota fisheries.”

He said MPAs should be seen as just one part of a bio-regional approach to management and there was a need to “always come back to what you are trying to achieve – and why”.

Commercial – rec integration

Incorporating recreational fishing in the ESD process is one of Rick Fletcher’s priorities.

“To ensure sustainability, the fishing industry – fishers, scientists, managers – must accept the need to include catch taken by all sectors in their management and assessment processes.

“This will often require measurement of recreational catches and, in some cases, the establishment of explicit allocations for each sector.

“Here in WA we’ve begun work to implement integrated fisheries management that will result in explicit commercial, recreational and customary allocations in many of our inshore fisheries.”

An independent expert committee has considered what the initial access allocation should be for each lobster sector. Consultation and a recommendation to the fisheries minister will follow.

Putting full ESD to work

Rick Fletcher sees the 2005 release of a BRS social assessment handbook for fisheries as another major achievement of the FRDC-funded ESD Subprogram.

“It highlights”, he believes, “a growing realisation that we need to look at all elements of ESD, not just the environmental aspects.

“We have now developed most of the tools needed to assess full ESD performance.

“The bottom line is to use them in a collective way, to help assess whether any changes to current management arrangements will deliver a clear, overall benefit to society.”

Social Assessment Handbook: A guide to methods and approaches for assessing the social sustainability of fisheries in Australia is available in hard copy from BRS, phone 02 6272 3933, for $40; or by download from www.brs.gov.au/socialsciences.

See sea lions by satellite

South Australian Scientists have tracked the daily movements of 60 Australian sea lions for about six months to discover where and how they feed under an FRDC funded project 2004/201.

The aim is to learn more about a mammal now listed as a threatened species under the Australian Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – and to factor its needs into aquaculture planning and management.

This sea lion – a big, eared seal – exists only in Australia, with 80 per cent of the population based on the South Australian coast.

For the project 30 adult females,15 adult males and 15 juveniles from six of eight known breeding sites on the Nuyts Archipelago, off Ceduna, were fitted with satellite-linked radio transmitters by scientists from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and National Parks and Wildlife rangers.

Centre of attention is the Port Lincoln locality, where a big sea lion population operates cheek by jowl with tuna farming.

“This study is the most comprehensive ever,” said Principal Investigator Simon Goldsworthy of SARDI “and very important, because little is known about their important foraging habitats.

“We have already completed a detailed seal lion census, discovered two previously unknown breeding sites and determined that about 400 pups are born at these sites each season, accounting for about 20 per cent of the SA population.”

As this edition of R&D News went to press, the field crew, assisted by Ceduna boat charter operator Perry Wills, was scheduled to begin recapturing the last of the study animals to retrieve their backpack transmitters.

The study is funded by FRDC and the aquaculture division of Primary Industry Research South Australia.

Immortality for Gus

Hobart-based marine scientist Gordon (Gus) Yearsley has achieved a rare and enduring honour – a species new to science has been named for him. The species comes from the Malaysian broadfin shark Lamiopsis temmincki.

The American scientists who have described and named it say Sanguilevator yearsleyi is an unusual blood-sequestering tapeworm.

Their citation says: This species is named for Gordon Yearsley of CSIRO Tasmania, whose insistence on one final pass through the Mukah fish market (Borneo) yielded the specimen of Lamiopsis temmincki found to host this new species.

In Australia Gordon Yearsley, a taxonomist, is himself an adept at the name game. He is a member of the Australian Fish Names Committee and co-editor of several species identification guides, including the Australian Seafood Handbook and the Field Guide to Australian Sharks
and Rays.

For Dianah, a good year

Looking back on 2005, I have a keen sense of accomplishment and pleasant recollections of meeting and spending time with inspirational people.

Participation in and successful completion of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) course was a highlight. I am proud that I am now a graduate and have attained the diploma offered by AICD.

Thanks to the opportunities afforded by the Advance in Seafood National Leadership Development Program in partnership with FRDC, my leadership skills and capacity are developing at a rapid rate of knots.

To be able to provide leadership, I believe we must acknowledge that we are not all the same; everyone has a contribution to make; we must build on our strengths and we must embrace the differences.

I have learned that mentoring and setting an example is extremely important and that those who are willing to learn from others will develop exponentially. FRDC has been very supportive of the mentoring process.

Throughout 2004, during my participation in the Leadership Development Program, I was mentored by Queenslander Judith Ham. Judith was adept at getting me to think outside the square and to not sweat the small things.

In 2005 I chose a mentor not directly linked to the seafood industry and one who was readily accessible, in person, in my home state.

The primary reason for this was that I felt that face-to-face meetings were important and the tyranny of distance meant that my relationship with Judith was mainly by phone or email.

I entered the mentoring partnership with Ian Miller, Economic Development Officer with the Southern Flinders Ranges Development Board Inc. The consequent sharing of my visions and ideas has played a significant role in my development.

Ian Miller recognised and acknowledged my efforts late last year by nominating me in the category of community individual for the SA Great Awards.

Although I didn’t achieve the top honour I was proud and humbled to be among high-calibre nominees at the awards night and to have my personal and community efforts acknowledged at such a forum.

They say if you want to get a job done just ask a busy person! The skills that I have learned and developed have placed me in good stead to confidently take on roles in other facets of my community.

During 2004/05 I was President/Chair of SAWIN and I am also heavily involved in the Napperby Progress Association (secretary for two years), co-logistics officer for the Napperby Country Fire Service and Deputy Chair of the Napperby Primary School Governing Council and was recently elected to the new Pirie Districts Development Board.

It’s fair to say that my participation in these forums has been enhanced and value-added by the skills I’ve learned and developed through the leadership programs.

I want to continue to use my leadership skills and knowledge by setting an example and providing leadership not just in the SA seafood industry but in our community.

I have developed extensive networks within our community, South Australia and nationally. I am well placed to communicate and promote our industry and regional successes.

Redbait matched, hatched

TASMANIAN scientists on a research voyage have stripped eggs and sperm from pelagic rebait and hatched the resulting larvae aboard ship.

The Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute’s (TAFI’s) Dirk Welsford and Graeme Ewing selected the spawning parents off Babel Island in Bass Strait from one of 10 research shots made by the mid-water trawler Ellidi, provided by the industrial fishing company Seafish Tasmania. The Ellidi crew had modified its net sensors to make individual shots of mere kilograms of redbait, rather than the tonnes normally targeted.

After fertilising the eggs, the TAFI researchers hatched them in a modified aquarium set up in an Esky in a shower cubicle aboard the Ellidi, where they remained until the completion of the six day voyage.

They say the resulting snapshot of the developmental stages of redbait embryos is a world first that will allow eggs and larvae collected in a separate stage of the project to be identified and aged.

A schooling pelagic species growing to about 36cm and 400g, redbait formerly was bycatch for fishmeal but since 2002 has been targeted and frozen whole at Triabunna to feed caged southern bluefin tuna in South Australia.

The TAFI project, funded through FRDC’s Sustainable Fisheries Subprogram, aims to estimate the size of the redbait resource off the east and south-west coasts of Tasmania – Zone A of the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery (SPF) - so managers can set sustainable catch levels.

The annual total allowable redbait catch for Zone A is about 34,000t. Landings to date are a fraction of this, but to maintain commercial confidentiality – Seafish Tasmania approaches sole operator status - the Australian Fisheries Management Authority does not release catch figures.

Egg production voyage

To test the suitability of using the Daily Egg Production Method (DEPM) to estimate spawning biomass, a TAFI team of six aboard the chartered Dell Richey II sampled eggs at more than 90 sites from north of Flinders Island to Storm Bay, south of Hobart.

At each site a plankton net was raised vertically through the water to catch any redbait eggs and larvae in its path. Instruments attached to the net frame simultaneously measured salinity, temperature and other environmental parameters so a three-dimensional picture of the water column could be constructed.

Sampling was conducted around the clock under the direction of Principal Investigator Jeremy Lyle and cruise leader Francisco Neira, an expert in larval fish biology and taxonomy.

From this voyage the researchers have begun to analyse almost 100 plankton net samples and many fish eggs, including those of redbait they believe were spawning as the Dell Richey II passed overhead.

From the Ellidi voyage they have a range of schooling redbait, from 12cm to 31cm fork length, captured at night as schools formed over the outer edge of the continental shelf. Fish as small as 14cm were mature, though spawning females generally were 17cm or more.

Jeremy Lyle said the Ellidi samples would be used to assess sex ratios, average size and weight of spawning females and numbers of eggs produced, thus covering all the parameters required to evaluate the daily egg production method of assessment and estimate the biomass of redbait that spawned during the survey.

Having such a method available to set sustainable catch limits for a species that was a crucial part of the pelagic ecosystem should, he said, prove useful as commercial interest increased.

He said the success of the survey had been due in large part to the cooperation of industry.

MORE: Jeremy Lyle, Francisco Neira, Dirk Welsford, phone 03 6227 7277. FRDC Project 2004/039.

Final reports

FINAL reports on these recently-completed R&D projects are available from FRDC, or the other sources named.

Most seafood retailers don’t know how to improve business through point-of-sale (POS) promotion and industry as a whole has failed to collaboratively develop the necessary strategies, says Principal Investigator Norman Grant, publisher of the trade magazine Seafood Australia. After visiting 47 retailers in five states, he says retailers first have to be shown how good POS material can boost their sales. Then, in developing this material, the production sector – companies and institutions – must discuss the mutual benefit of marketing plans and proposed messages with retailers and seek their input into the creation of effective POS promotion.

For the catching sector, integrated management systems that go beyond EMS are the most logical and cost-effective way of dealing with the full range of business issues, says Principal Investigator Samara Miller of the Seafood Council (SA) Ltd. She has led the development of an independently-audited environmental management system for South Australia’s rocklobster and prawn fisheries that also covers occupational health and safety, resource sustainability, food safety and quality and animal welfare. Fisher participation in the training courses was 76 per cent. A technical reference panel of stakeholders outside the fishing industry ensured that the standards adopted matched the expectations of the wider community.

Identifying the gaps in work practices on boats and in processing plants was the first step in developing Clean Green food safety improvements – that exceed Australian Seafood Standard requirements – for the southern rocklobster supply chain. So far, more than 200 fishers in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria have qualified through voluntary training for independent audit and certification. This response, says Principal Investigator Paul McShane of the Australian Maritime College, reflects southern rocklobster fishers’ pride in performance and determination to be good environmental managers.

Australian finfish and crustacean aquaculture is no longer dependent on imports of the brine shrimp Artemia as an essential, live component of larval diets. This project has developed an alternative micro-diet that promises better growth and survival and has also laid the foundation for a follow-up project (FRDC 2004/258). Principal Investigator Sagiv Kolkovski of Western Australia’s Mariculture Research and Advisory Group says validated feeding protocols allow 90 per cent of the live food currently used to be replaced with minimal or nil effect.

Reinforcing the concept ‘you are what you eat’, Victorian and Queensland researchers have used stable isotope analysis to determine the relative importance of individual near-shore marine plants as food for fish around much of Australia. Some results may surprise: King George whiting’s major food changes from Western Australia to Victoria and food webs based on seagrass support many species in South Australia and Queensland, including SA’s yellowfin whiting, which spends little time there. Principal Investigator Gregory Jenkins of Primary Industries Research Victoria says this demonstrated dependence points to a need for better protection of seagrass meadows. The researchers also surveyed fish use of Victorian under-studied inshore habitats such as mangroves, mudflats and salt marshes.

Continuing poor recruitment will probably see the spawning biomass of blue grenadier in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery fall below 40 per cent of its reference point, says the CSIRO. Safe catch levels for blue warehou west of Bass Strait are unpredictable, but increases east of the strait may be sustainable. Gummy shark recruitment appears to be above estimates in Bass Strait, but below expectations off South Australia. Sawshark and elephant fish appear to be depleted to below 40 per cent of 1950 pup production. A lower TAC is advised for jackass morwong and recent catch levels of tiger flathead from NSW to Bass Strait are rated as unsustainable. Current pink ling catch rates may also be unsustainable, say Principal Investigators Geoffrey Tuck and Tony Smith, but two assessment methods showed that a 25 per cent cut to 1200t would be sustainable.

Stock assessment in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) requires a Robin Hood approach – taking information on data-rich species to make inferences for those that are data-poor. So says Principal Investigator David Smith of Primary Industries Research Victoria in describing two ways of doing this. Together, he says, they form an analytical tool that will probably provide better results than CPUE or age structure alone and, ultimately, will be a cost-effective means of making more formal assessments of the many SESSF species currently unmeasured.

The South Australian Research and Development Institute will continue using the daily egg production method to estimate the spawning biomass of sardines, because of uncertainties associated with age-structured stock assessment. Principal Investigator Tim Ward says SARDI’s otolith age and growth analysis showed sardines in the fishery catch were aged

between one and six years, but those collected independently from the offshore shelf were aged from two to seven, with most approaching three. With an annual catch of more than 20,000t the SA fishery is Australia’s biggest by volume. Most is fed to southern bluefin tuna caged off Port Lincoln.

Results of a 2002 audit of the ecological health of Australia’s 979 estuaries are at www.ozestuaries.org as a searchable geoscientifc database. A plain-English illustrated book Where river meets sea: Exploring Australia’s estuaries is in bookshops. Principal Investigator Lynne Turner, formerly of the Coastal Cooperative Research Centre, says the audit and these publications have increased awareness of the estuaries’ individual processes, functions and conditions and the need to manage human impacts.

South Australia’s fast-growing yellowtail kingfish aquaculture sector now has a 64 page diagnostic guidebook to help farm staff and health specialists identify specific diseases, plus guidelines to manage fish health. Principal Investigator Mark Sheppard of Canada’s Sakana Veterinary Services Ltd says a trawl of the literature and interviews in Australia and Japan identified 14 plausible health hazards, three of them high-risk and 11 rated as moderate. With 10 of these already reported in South Australia, the immediate R&D priority, he says, is to develop prevention and control measures for all fourteen.

Draft national protocols that would ensure swift, uniform reporting and investigation of significant wild fish kills have been endorsed by representatives of federal, state and territory government agencies at a national workshop. Principal Investigator Barbara Nowak of the University of Tasmania says a consistent national approach is needed to: properly detect and identify exotic diseases, major pollution and poisoning that creates human health risks; address legal issues that will permit successful prosecutions, protect fisheries; and contribute to Australia’s biosecurity.

Adoption of a HACCP food safety program by the Australian prawn farming sector has resulted in all operators using a uniform grading system and working to the new, auditable Australian Seafood Standard. Independent audits have allowed participating producers to achieve certification under the Woolworth Quality Assurance system, thus meeting the requirements of supermarkets and other major retailers. Principal Investigator Brad Hutchings of Seafarmers Consulting says some farmers have reported better profits and Safe Food Queensland is considering using the prawn program as a model code for other food sectors.

This project has established that whether a penaeid prawn develops as male or female is determined by either one or a few genetic loci – the positions of genes on chromosomes – rather than fully differentiated sex chromosomes. This knowledge can now be used to attempt to manipulate sex ratios of farmed prawns in favour of females, which grow faster and more economically than males. Principal Investigator Ken Reed of the Queensland Agricultural Biotechnology Centre says his team located only three genetic markers for males and one for females in kuruma prawns – good news because fewer genes means manipulation will be less complex.

Could some of the 20 sex-specific compounds in the urine of female Australian penaeid prawns lead to the development of a pheromone bait that would allow trawls to be replaced by pots or traps? This project has established that prawns have a well-developed sense of smell and that males at sexual maturity develop a smelling ability several times better than females – and devote much bigger areas of their brain to processing the incoming information. Early days, says Principal Investigator Mike Hall of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, but these male abilities suggest females use reproductive pheromones to attract mates.

A relative spawning index established in the Northern Prawn Fishery has the potential to deliver an annual estimate of tiger and endeavour prawn abundance, says Principal Investigator Yimin Ye of the CSIRO. He says the index can also be used to independently assess these species’ spatial extent and provide good maps of distribution and abundance. It is part of an integrated monitoring program that includes a regional recruitment index for all five commercial species.

Researchers have quantified the increased fishing power of Queensland and Torres Strait prawn trawlers during the 40 years to 2000 to establish annual catch trigger points that will reduce the likelihood of overfishing. Principal Investigators Tony Courtney and Michael O’Neill of the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Queensland say their subsequent modelling suggests that reference points set at two-thirds or three-quarters of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) will improve catches while maintaining stocks of prawns and scallops slightly above the size that supports MSY. They say the greatest increase in fishing power has been in the shallow water eastern king prawn sector – an annual average growth of 27 per cent between 1989 and 1999 – and in Torres Strait, which recorded an annual average of 24 per cent between 1982 and 2002.

An independent recruitment survey method developed and tested in this project for northern Queensland’s east coast prawn trawl fishery has proved a robust and cost-effective way to provide the data needed in such a multi-species fishery. Principal Investigator Clive Turnbull of the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Queensland says the resulting recruitment indices compare well with trends in commercial harvest data, particularly for tiger prawns, which are considered particularly susceptible to over-fishing.

Five generations of Pacific oysters selectively bred in this project and its predecessor for faster growth, higher weight and better shape were tested on farms in Tasmania and South Australia. Then the project was handed to Australian Seafood Industries Pty Ltd, a company established by growers in both states to continue the work and transfer the benefits to industry. Already, says Principal Investigator Bob Ward of the CSIRO, the selectively bred lines are being used for about 20 per cent of commercial output and the industry is more productive.

An attempt to establish continuous cell lines of southern bluefin tuna tissue to use in establishing diagnostic procedures for viral diseases has failed, apparently because the fish from which the tissue was taken were too old. Principal Investigators Mark Crane and Lynette Williams of CSIRO Livestock Industries say their methods and support materials were good enough to establish primary cell cultures, but it was likely young SBT would be required as starting material for cell lines that would live indefinitely.

Hypertension – high blood pressure – appears to be the major killer of Atlantic salmon infected with amoebic gill disease (AGD). It causes circulatory failure, reports Principal Investigator Mark Powell of the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute. The study showed that softening fresh water improved its ability to kill the AGD parasite and that seawater spiked with the disinfectant chloramine-T might be a faster and more economic treatment.

Australia’s abalone farmers are able to grow their products faster and cheaper than ever before, thanks to efficient manufactured diets developed and refined through FRDC’s Abalone Aquaculture Subprogram. So says Principal Investigator Meegan Vandepeer of the South Australian Research and Development Institute. In 1993, she says, a farmer paid $5.50 a kg for feed that delivered an average daily growth rate of 30-85mm. Today the cost is $2.95/kg – 55 per cent less – and average growth is 70-100mm a day.

The philosophy underpinning the Australian Tuna Handling Manual is to improve product quality on longliners by making sure skippers and crews understand the principles behind recommended processes. The ultimate aim, says Principal Investigator Cheryl Hughes of Facts on Food, Western Australia, is to help fishers understand the nature of the fish, plus optimal handling, quality and safe food practices – and thus have a clear grasp of what they can control to improve market access and profit.

The annual maximum sustainable yield of north-east Queensland’s ornate lobster fishery appears to be about 170t, says Principal Investigator Roland Pitcher of the CSIRO. This follows a study of the species’ biology, modelling of larval movement and an assessment of commercial catch data. The researchers recommend validation of catch data, a maximum size limit, establishment of a developmental southern fishery, plus further biological and oceanographic research.

Cold water stunning reduces post harvest leg loss from western rocklobsters, but the effects on survival rates of lobsters returned to the sea remain unclear. Principal Investigator Glen Davidson of the Geraldton Fishermen’s Co-op says that off the southern Abrolhos Islands stunned lobsters were recaptured at a lower rate than unstunned ones, but inshore between Dongara and Geraldton the rates were the same. A bigger study is underway over a wider area in an attempt to relate recapture rates to time spent in stun tanks at 5°C-10°C.

More than 1000 square kilometres of fish habitat at Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago has been mapped with a combination of sidescan sonar and towed video cameras. Fish assemblies were sampled with baited stero video and single camera setups. Initially, says Principal Investigator Gary Kendrick of the University of WA, habitats were classified into five broad types. Low profile reef accounted for 33.4 per cent of the area mapped, sand 28.3 per cent, seagrass 20.1 per cent, rhodoliths 13.6 per cent and high profile reef 4.6 per cent.

Minimum quality standards adopted by the farmed barramundi sector for fresh whole fish have improved product quality, buyer confidence and, possibly, helped maintain a buoyant price, says Principal Investigator Carl Young, former Executive Officer of the Australian Barramundi Farmers’ Association. The standards cover size, grade, flavour, packing and labelling.

Australian Seafood Co-products (ASCo), a company formed through FRDC’s South East Fishery Industry Development Subprogram, is awaiting the outcome of commercial trials of Fish-P, an organic fertiliser utilising what formerly was fish processing waste. The trials are part of a joint venture with Incitec Pivot, Australia’s biggest fertiliser company. In the meantime, says Principal Investigator Ian Knuckey of Fishwell Consulting, ASCo members are considering options to direct-sell their processing residues to agricultural companies and cooperatives.

Useful information on diet, genetics, predation, parasites, densities and diseases has flowed from an unsuccessful attempt to develop technology for hatchery production and growout of the inter-tidal clam Katelysia scalarina in Tasmania. Principal Investigator Greg Maguire, now of the WA Department of Fisheries, said the subtidal species Ruditapes largillierti (Venerupis) showed more promise, but protecting a subtidal clam from predators would be a major technical challenge.

An update of the publication Evaluation of the Market for Dried Seafood 1993-96 is available from Seafood Services Australia Ltd. Principal Investigators Stephen Thrower and Andrew Forrest of the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Queensland have concentrated on three main markets: Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority’s (AFMA’s) 2005-2010 R&D plan establishes priorities within four research programs. Principal Investigator Dave Alden of AFMA says it will be used by the Commonwealth Fisheries Research Advisory Body and AFMA’s research committee as a basis for planning and undertaking R&D.

In the know

ASIC’s new CEO

The Australian Seafood Industry Council (ASIC) has appointed an experienced political lobbyist to succeed Russ Neal as Chief Executive Officer.

Richard Lindsay, 38, was previously Manager, Government Affairs, of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

He is also a former political consultant for Government Relations Australia, a heavyweight lobbying organisation representing major corporations and, before that, was General Manager of Government Policy for the Australian Information Industry Association, an information technology peak body. He has also worked as a political adviser to government and as a public servant in the departments of Finance, Communications and Prime Minister and Cabinet.

ASIC Chair Bob Pennington said Richard Lindsay was taking over at a time the seafood industry was facing unprecedented economic, environmental and political challenges.

“Despite rising fuel costs, implementation of MPAs and buyouts of fishing effort, our industry is adamant that it will provide a seafood product to Australia and the world that is the best by far,” Bob Pennington said.

“Richard Lindsay’s exceptional set of skills will help to best focus our efforts on achieving our goals.”

R&D News

Volume 14, Edition 1

Freeze in retail freshness