There are several New and Exploratory toothfish fisheries operating under CCAMLR, and once again, COLTO is proud to be sponsoring the CCAMLR toothfish tagging program for New and Exploratory Fisheries for the current fishing season. All retrieved tags from toothfish caught in CCAMLR’s New and Exploratory fisheries this season will go into the draw to win part of the AUD$1,000 prize pool, drawn at the upcoming CCAMLR meeting.
More details can be found on the official Toothfish tagging program poster below that has been produced by CCAMLR.
What are new and exploratory fisheries?
A new fishery, as defined under CCAMLR CM21-01, is a fishery on a species using a particular fishing method in a statistical subarea or division for which:
(i) information on distribution, abundance, demography, potential yield and stock identity from comprehensive research/surveys or exploratory fishing have not been submitted to CCAMLR; or
(ii) catch and effort data have never been submitted to CCAMLR; or
(iii) catch and effort data from the two most recent seasons in which fishing occurred have not been submitted to CCAMLR.
An exploratory fishery, as defined under CCAMLR CM21-02, is a fishery which:
(i) was previously defined as a new fishery
(ii) continues to be classified as such until sufficient information is available to:
(a) evaluate the distribution, abundance and demography of the target species, leading to an estimate of the fishery’s potential yield;
(b) review the fishery’s potential impacts on dependent and related species;
(c) allow the Scientific Committee to formulate and provide advice to the Commission on appropriate harvest catch levels, as well as effort levels and fishing gear, where appropriate.