\u201cWe just can\u2019t go on having these species under severe threat in parts of Western Australia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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The department, in an update on the west coast demersal resource, stated overfishing of snapper and dhufish was ongoing and preventing the species\u2019 recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cSustained commercial and recreational high fishing pressure on these long-lived species … has
reduced the number of older breeding fish that are critical for replenishing the population,\u201d the update read.<\/p>\n
Greens MP Sophie McNeill warned species like dhufish risked becoming \u201cfunctionally extinct in our lifetime\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a fish to be sustainable, it must have more than 30 per cent biomass, but we heard today that the department is recording only 7 per cent biomass for Dhufish in the Perth metro area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that management practices over the last 20 years have failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cTemporary closures have not worked, they have just resulted in people fishing harder when those closures are lifted, seeing no improvement in stock numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, opposition fisheries spokeswoman Kirrilee Warr laid the blame at Labor\u2019s feet, accusing the government of \u201cnearly a decade of neglect and mismanagement\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has had years to act to protect one of our state\u2019s most valuable natural assets, but with four ministers since 2019, fisheries has been treated as an afterthought by a Perth-focused Labor government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Warr said Monday\u2019s roundtable was a \u201cpositive step in the right direction\u201d, but one which came far too late.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey should have been working closely with stakeholders like the WA Fishing Industry Council, Recfishwest, Traditional Owners and the scientific community from day one,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Warr urged Jarvis to listen to expert advice, including the newly announced Exmouth Gulf Marine Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrawing arbitrary lines on a map won\u2019t save our fisheries,\u201d Warr said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe just can\u2019t go on having these species under severe threat in parts of Western Australia,\u201d she said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-236063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}