{"id":54438,"date":"2025-08-09T03:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T03:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54438\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T03:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T03:07:15","slug":"queensland-government-looks-to-increase-spanish-mackerel-catch-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/54438\/","title":{"rendered":"Queensland government looks to increase Spanish mackerel catch limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commercial fishers will be allowed to increase their Spanish mackerel catch by more than 50 per cent by the end of the year under proposed new Queensland catch limits.<\/p>\n

The proposal could reduce prices for consumers, but marine conservationists believe the move is too soon to safeguard fish stocks.<\/p>\n

The Queensland Department of Primary Industries announced new figures this week showing the Spanish mackerel population had likely doubled since a dire review in 2021.<\/p>\n

It is now planning to raise catch limits for recreational boats from two fish per boat to a maximum of four.<\/p>\n

For commercial fishers it would increase annual allowable catches by 51.5 per cent, from 165 tonnes to 250 tonnes.<\/p>\n

Cheaper prices<\/p>\n

Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Allan Bobbermen said consumers would see lower prices if the changes went through.<\/p>\n

He said under current rules the fish was not “readily available” to buy.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Allan Bobbermen says consumers could see cheaper Spanish mackerel. (ABC Rural: Lucy Cooper)<\/p>\n

“The consumer will have a bit more guarantee of continuity of supply,” Mr Bobbermen said.<\/p>\n

He said the changes were good news for the commercial sector where the Spanish mackerel industry was almost “dead in the water”.<\/p>\n

“Spanish mackerel sell themselves,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s an iconic fish, it’s got a very good shelf life, you can cook it in many ways and it’s very popular in the fish and chip trade.”<\/p>\n

The 2021 state government review found Spanish mackerel were being overfished and assessed fish stock at 17 per cent of original levels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The following year the former Labor state government announced it would slash commercial catch quotas<\/a> by more than 71 per cent.<\/p>\n

The changes caused the value of fishing licences to plummet<\/a> and forced many commercial fishers out of the industry.<\/p>\n

\"Sign<\/p>\n

Restrictions were announced by the state government in 2022 and came into effect the following year. (ABC News: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n

The Crisafulli government has described the 2021 review as a flawed stock assessment and said a 2025 assessment found Spanish mackerel were fast growing and highly reproductive.<\/p>\n

Environmental experts cautious<\/p>\n

Simon Miller from the Australian Marine Conservation Society disputed assessments that Spanish mackerel populations had doubled.<\/p>\n

He said since the 2021 review, feedback had been taken on board from stock assessment scientists and the state government had revised the way it conducted assessments.<\/p>\n

“The new stock assessment puts the stock at 34 per cent,” he said.<\/p>\n

“That doesn’t mean the stock has doubled, it just means it’s a different assessment.”\"A<\/p>\n

The Queensland government wants to increase catch limits of Spanish mackerel. (ABC North Qld: Lily Nothling)<\/p>\n

The state government intends to consult the public before the proposed changes come into effect, potentially by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Mr Miller said while the new stock level was good news it still showed a long-term decline in the last decade that had only seen a “slight uptick” in the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

He said the state government should wait until it saw stronger evidence of stock recovery for changes to be made to catch limits.<\/p>\n

“We still need to be very precautionary in how we’re managing Spanish mackerel,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Bobbermen hoped the move would bring commercial operators back to the water.<\/p>\n

“It means they won’t have to surrender so many units of quota to get one kilo of fish, which is going to give them more value,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Some of the guys that stepped away from the industry will return.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commercial fishers will be allowed to increase their Spanish mackerel catch by more than 50 per cent by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,45229,6349,45228,701,45230,6967],"class_list":["post-54438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-catch-limits","tag-fishing","tag-fishing-laws","tag-queensland","tag-queensland-fishers","tag-spanish-mackerel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54438","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=54438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}