WAMSI Node 4.4.3 - Captured species assessments - Develop cost effective methods for monitoring the catch of the non-commercial sector

Understanding the relative accuracy and precision of each of the various standard and innovative approaches to estimate recreational catch and effort along with their relative costs, benefits, limitations and integration is essential for the development of the most appropriate ongoing recreational catch monitoring system. Assessment of current data types will required holistic re-analyses to identify the most likely sources of uncertainty amongst the data types being considered for an ongoing catch monitoring system. These potential data types will also be subjected to cost-benefit analysis, in consultation with funders, managers and stakeholders, to ensure that the levels of precision of the alternative methods are economically and socially acceptable. The initial analyses for developing a cost-effective monitoring system will be based on survey methods conducted in the West Coast Bioregion. However, not all survey methods are directly transferable to the Gascoyne Bioregion. In particular, the deployment and management of remote video cameras to monitor participation rates poses logistic and technological problems (e.g. remoteness of parts of the Gascoyne Bioregion; variable communication availability).Once an acceptable monitoring method has been developed it will be trialled for the West Coast and Gascoyne demersal scalefish fisheries.