出版社：Government of Western Australia / Department of Fisheries
摘要：Volunteer Fisheries Liaison Officers (VFLOs) are a group of individuals who participate in
volunteer activities promoting sustainable fishing amongst recreational anglers. The program
is a Department of Fisheries initiative that has been running since 1993 and, during this time,
>600 volunteers have participated in a variety of activities. The aim of this report was to explore
the data collected by VFLOs from 1995 - 2007 in each of the state’s four marine bioregions.
During this period, volunteers undertook >2,000 days of activities, the majority of which were
educational displays at events such as boat shows and patrols in coastal, marine and estuarine
environs. Patrols focused on interviews with recreational anglers to provide information about
sustainable fishing and collect data on catch and effort. These activities were concentrated
within the West Coast bioregion, particularly the Perth metropolitan area and Mandurah along
with regional centres such as Carnarvon and Albany. The peak period for volunteer activities
corresponded to the ‘high’ or tourist season in each bioregion. A re-branding of the VFLO
program in 2008 facilitated a shift towards educational activities and away from patrols and
their associated interviews with groups participating in recreational fishing from boats and the
shore. However, the efforts of these volunteers produced a longitudinal dataset of recreational
fishing activity throughout Western Australia, with 226 species and categories of aquatic
organisms retained or released by recreational fishers. The most frequently retained species
were blue swimmer crabs, Australian herring, general/sand whiting and tailor. Although there
were data limitations due to unstructured sampling strategies, catch rates were calculated for
the main species retained by recreational fishers in each bioregion. Furthermore, VFLOs in the
Mandurah region were tasked with focusing their patrols during early 2007 to investigate blue
swimmer crabs within the Peel/Harvey Estuary, highlighting the potential for these data to be
used as an indicator of catch rate trends and recreational fishing activity.
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