Tailor In Trouble

There is now belated acknowledgment by Queensland Fisheries that the stock of Tailor are seriously declining in Eastern Australia. As a result they recently released a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) on a proposed new regulation to reduce the take of tailor and to help conserve Tailor fishing stocks.

In brief it proposed a bag limit for Recreational Fisherman of 20 but for extended trips to Fraser Island it proposes that fishers can take up to 30 tailor per day.

• FIDO believes that based on Western Australia setting a bag limit of 8 tailor per angler per day the bag limit in Queensland should more realistically be set at 10 fish per angler.
• FIDO is also unhappy that there should be any larger bag limit for Fraser Island fishers. Allowing Fraser Island fishers 30 tailor per day (more than they can eat) doesn't overcome the general complaint that "amateurs" are filling freezers over a week on Fraser island and then becoming defacto professionals and selling the fish on their return to Brisbane and other centres to recover the costs of their holiday.
• FIDO would prefer to keep Fraser Island on the same standard as elsewhere because of difficulty of enforcement and determining what is an "extended" trip.
• One other factor affecting Fraser Island is a proposal to extend the closed season Fraser Island in the area from Waddy Point to Indian Head from all of September now to 1^st August to 30^th September. While FIDO welcomes this move as a chance to give the stocks a chance to replenish, we are unhappy that there has been no extension of the area closed to include Breaksea Spit. The RIS says that the Waddy Point to Indian Head area encompasses the largest known spawning aggregation of tailor. However Breaksea Spit is now believed to also be a very significant spawning ground and FIDO believes that this area also needs the protection of a closed season.
• The limit for the total commercial catch has been set at 120 tonnes for Queensland (which is effectively only as far north as Sandy Cape because even globally tailor is mainly found only at latitudes above 24 degrees and below 40. The move to restrict professional catches is at least a positive but with the catch continually declining from a 176.2 average since 1988, this may not be such a decline in the potential take and may not have been set low enough.

The Fraser Island World Heritage area extends 500 metres to sea all around Fraser Island. It includes the fish stock as well as the terrestrial flora and fauna. FIDO is as concerned to see that the natural marine resources are protected as well as the terrestrial natural resources. That is why FIDO is arguing that more strenuous efforts are made to conserve the fisheries resources off Fraser Island. MOONBI will keep members and the conservation movement informed on developments.

The Queensland Department of Primary Industries failed to act on a Discussion Paper to prepare a Fisheries management Plan for Fraser Island back in 1996. It has let the tailor stocks run down as they stalled on taking any action.

FIDO will be more active in ensuring that more urgent action is taken over Fraser Island’s most famous fishery tailor. After all it was the Butchalla who gave the name of the fish "Tailor" to the world. Tailor is a corruption of the Butchalla name for the fish, "dhailli".