Community leaders in one of Australia's 12 Natural World Heritage areas fear their fish stocks have been left vulnerable to overfishing and exploitation by government moves to protect fish in other areas.
Shark Bay, 800 kilometres north of Perth, is home to one of Australia's most abundant marine ecosystems, and is a popular recreational fishing destination.
However, residents are now worried that tough new management rules, introduced earlier this year by the Western Australian government to protect fish stocks in other areas, could have negative flow-on effects for their remote shire.
The new measures include a six-month recreational fishing season closure along a 900km-stretch of coastline from Kalbarri to Augusta, aimed at conserving fish stocks in the West Coast Demersal Scalefish Fishery.
But residents of Shark Bay — the next community north of the closed fishery — say no measures have been put in place to stop the transfer of recreational fishing pressure to their pristine shores.
Malgana traditional owner and lifetime professional net fisherman Glen Hoult said his community had been inundated with recreational fishers during WA's COVID-related international travel shutdown, and he was worried management changes to the south would create another influx of visitors.
"If those people that fish in between Kalbarri and Augusta can't fish there now, they're still going to go fishing," Mr Hoult said.
"So where are they going to come? They're going to come here or they're going to go to Albany."
The West Coast Demersal zone is closed for recreational fishing six months of the year, broken into sections to remain open during school holidays.
It was closed from February 1 until March 31, and will close again from August 1 until December 15, opening briefly for the September school holidays.
Shark Bay falls within the Gascoyne zone, where fishers can take five demersal fish per person per day. A fisher is also limited to a 10 kilogram possession limit of finfish.
"A lot of these fish travel, they're not necessarily staying in one spot, there's no fences to hold them in anywhere, they can go where they like," Mr Hoult said.
Mr Hoult does not target demersal fish in his fishing operation, however he said increased boat traffic frightened the schools of fish, which he catches using a jet boat and nets.
Concerns to government
Shark Bay Shire president Cheryl Cowell wrote to WA fisheries minister Don Punch late last year, urging him to put measures in place to protect her shire from a transfer of recreational fishing pressure north to Shark Bay.
"That was what we were all fearing, that there would be this massive influx of people from the south, and we the Shire here asked the minister to concurrently put in some other limits," she said.
"From my letter that I wrote to Minister Punch initially, the response was yes, we acknowledge your concerns and we will be looking at that sort of thing … But as far as I'm aware, they haven't instigated any of that."
Ms Cowell said her concerns were shared by leaders of nearby local governments such as Carnarvon and Exmouth.
However, Mr Punch said the government would only act if it observed a "significant" increase in boat traffic in areas such as Shark Bay, monitored through cameras placed at boat launch facilities.
"Shark Bay has always been a really attractive place for people to go on holiday and fish, and getting the balance right between the pressure on the fishing stock, and people's experience of relaxing and enjoying Shark Bay is a big challenge," Mr Punch said.
Dr Andrew Rowland, chief executive of Recfishwest, which represents the state's recreational fishing sector, said decisions about fishery management needed to be guided by "science not speculation".
"We are monitoring [fishing effort] as we go, but we haven't yet seen any evidence, in fact the evidence is starting to show that it may be an unfounded concern," Dr Rowland said.
An appeal for respect
Across 2016-2018 Shark Bay averaged 120,000 visitors per year, with winter and spring being popular times for visitors.
Ms Cowell said tourists were important to the local economy, but the attitude of some visitors needed to change.
"They have an ethos of they're here for a good time and to just get as many fish as they can fill up the freezer," she said.
"We want to get people back fishing for a feed, not fishing for a target.
"We don't want to discourage people coming, we want people to come.
"We just want them to follow the rules and do the right thing with the fish stocks, but also just generally with our pristine environment."
Who is checking catches?
Areas of Shark Bay have unique fillet and bag limits for pink snapper, introduced several years ago to protect stocks from overfishing.
Shark Bay was inscribed on the World Heritage Area list in 1991, covering 2.2 million hectares, and 1,500 kilometres of coastline. Almost 900,000 hectares of Shark Bay is a marine park, managed by the WA government.
Ms Cowell said there had also been a reduction in the number of fisheries compliance officers active in the shire.
"We had four fisheries officers here and a mobile one in the season as well, so that was really good coverage … now we don't actually have anyone here on a permanent basis. We have two alternating fisheries officers," she said.
Ms Cowell's concerns on compliance were echoed by Recfishwest and the WA Fishing Industry Council, with both groups saying the state needed more fisheries compliance officers for catch monitoring and community education.
However, Minister Punch refuted these claims, saying there were two fisheries officers permanently based in Shark Bay, and his government had not cut back spending on fishery compliance or education.
"For whatever reason sometimes people don't see the fisheries officers, but they are based up in the area, and they are active in the area and we have boats in the area, so I'm confident in the capacity of fisheries staff to respond to the fishing pressures in the area," he said.
