THE rumours have been flying that factory trawler Geelong Star has been off the Far South Coast of NSW this week.
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Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation director and Game Fishing Association of Australia president Brett Cleary said his information was that the 95-metre trawler was off Batemans Bay but has now headed south toward Flinders Island.
A Small Pelagic Fishing Industry Association (SPFIA) representative late Thursday confirmed to the Narooma News that the vessel had indeed been off the Far South Coast NSW but had now moved on.
The Bermagui Bait and Tackle Facebook page was alive with comments this week that the vessel had been off Bermagui and then headed south past Tathra.
Local commercial fishermen were equally outraged as recreational fishermen, so strong was their anger that they threatened to start working without fishing licences.
The general public is in the dark as to the location of the ship because while the Australian Fisheries Management Authority requires Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) on the vessel, it does not require the Automatic Identification System (AIS) system to be on while the VMS is on.
While the public can access AIS through various websites, the VMS data is only available to authorities.
Geelong Star recommences operations
Small Pelagic Fishery Industry Association chairman Grahame Turk said on Thursday the freezer trawler Geelong Star was heading to sea to recommence commercial fishing operations.
The vessel has been tied up in its home port of Geelong for the past two and a half weeks to allow a thorough check of all mechanical systems and for new equipment to be installed.
The vessel operators have also consulted AFMA regarding implementation of new conditions imposed on the vessel.
A new type of barrier net has been mounted inside the mouth of the Geelong Star’s net to specifically keep dolphins out. This is a 200 mm mesh grid designed to keep dolphins out and so they can escape before they enter the area of the net where meshes become too small for escape.
This device sits closer to the mouth of the net than the existing marine mammal excluder device.
Two different types of acoustic deterrent devices (pingers) will be carried on the vessel to be used on the head ropes of the net. The Geelong Star will be evaluating which pinger system works best in this fishery. The pingers alert the dolphins to the presence of the trawl net and give the animals time to swim away from its path.
AFMA has placed a condition on mid-water trawlers in the Small Pelagic Fishery that they must only fish during daylight hours.
The Geelong Star will continue to host an AFMA observer on board, and will do so for at least a year from its first fishing trip.
In addition, one of the Geelong Star’s crew has a wildlife observer’s qualification and will be the designated dolphin spotter on board.
AFMA now requires the Geelong Star to have camera coverage across its deck so the regulator can have 24/7 coverage whether their observer is on deck or elsewhere.
“The Association and the operators of The Geelong Star share the community’s concern about harm to dolphins as an iconic species,” Mr Turk said.
“The operators have made considerable investment in new technology aimed at reducing risk of dolphin inter-actions.
“AFMA’s conditions make this the most tightly regulated mid-trawl fishery in Australia,” Mr Turk said.
Rec fishers announce talks collapse
The Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation (ARFF), the national organisation representing the recreational fishing community, has announced that discussions between it and the Small Pelagic Fishing Industry Association (SPFIA) have collapsed.
The Game Fishing Association of Australia (GFAA), a member organisation of ARFF, is responsible for ARFF’s position on pelagic species and sharks in Commonwealth waters.
Discussions over the past two months between ARFF and SPFIA included Brett Cleary, GFAA’s President and a director of ARFF.
The objective being to work with the industrial fishing sector towards minimising the impacts of the Geelong Star on the fishery, recreational fishers and the communities that support them.
The collapse in the talks occurred because the SPFIA has rejected a comprehensive and well considered proposal developed by ARFF and its members that aimed at dealing with the environmental and social impacts of the 95m factory trawler known as the Geelong Star.
The rejected proposal mapped out a way forward on this issue and addressed many of the concerns that Australia’s recreational fishers have about industrial scale commercial fishing of the small pelagic fishery.
It also outlined a comprehensive research program to address the lack of economic, social and environmental information and their effects.
“Our proposal was based on working with the vessel managers on where the Geelong Star could fish and would have affected less than 10 per cent of the 3 million square kilometres of the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery,” ARFF managing director Allan Hansard said.
“There is little point in continuing talks when the SPFIA does not seem to be serious about dealing with our concerns. Their counter offers to our proposal are not even close to what we have been seeking in good faith.”
The failure of the talks to make real progress on key issues means that the nation’s 5 million recreational fishers will now look to other avenues to have their concerns addressed.
The Geelong Star has already come under fire for killing dolphins and seals with new regulations governing its actions doing little to quell public and political outrage over the environmental destruction caused by industrial scale fishing operations.
The rejection of the ARFF proposal by SPFIA also means that the vessel is largely unrestricted in where and when it can fish, meaning it can exploit bait stocks at many of Australia’s most iconic game and sport fishing locations, including Port MacDonnell in South Australia, Portland in Victoria, Eden, Bermagui, Jervis Bay and the Carpark at Port Stephens in NSW, Eagle Hawk Neck in Tasmania and Geographe Bay and the Rottnest Trench in Western Australia.
Brett Cleary described the response from the SPFIA as very disappointing. “We will now be taking our concerns to the Federal Government with whom initial discussions have resulted in the offer to facilitate a process to address our concerns. GFAA remains committed to pursuing an outcome that protects recreational fishing areas from this industrial fishing activity on behalf of its members.”
