CRAYFISH CASUALTIES
WA’s rock lobster fishery is under pressure.
IN EARLY NOVEMBER last year, Australian fishers watched in horror as tonnes of live western rock lobsters, worth an estimated $2 million, sat on an airport tarmac in China.
Chinese authorities wanted, they said, to arrange testing of the shellfish for the presence of heavy metals. The delay meant that, although the lobsters had been carefully packaged to arrive live, many perished, making them inedible.
Fishers here suspected the precious cargo had become another casualty in the recent China–Australia trade spat, in part sparked by tensions rising from questions and accusations about the origins of the COVID pandemic. Some of the stranded lobster consignment survived to eventually make it to Chinese consumers, but a total import ban by China on Australian lobsters followed. And COVID went on to ultimately have an even wider impact on the industry based on the much-prized shellfish, which are often known in Western Australia as crayfish.
LOBSTERS ARE BIG business, and nowhere is it bigger than in WA. The western rock lobster is Australia’s most valuable single-species fishery, worth $300–500 million per year before COVID. Western rock lobsters are fished along the south-western coastline, from Denham in the north to Augusta in the south. Sales to China normally account for about 94 per cent of WA’s catch, so the ongoing trade hiatus is seriously hurting producers.
WA’s lobster fishers are represented by the Western Rock Lobster peak body (WRL). Its CEO, Matt Taylor, explains to me some of the issues associated with the Chinese trade halt. “In WA we export more lobster than the rest of Australia and New Zealand combined,” he says. “When the Chinese market shut, our biggest problem became the scale of exports that we had to find new markets for, and we have had to do it in a time of a global pandemic. Restaurants, festivals and family gatherings are shut down, so the typical demand for our product is not there.”
Matt confesses he sees no end in sight to the China problem. “The relationship between our exporters and their importers is excellent,” he says. “Their customers love and want our product. But at the moment the issue is a political one, and as such, the solution is political.”
The export of Australian lobsters was first disrupted due to COVID early in the pandemic, and by China’s lockdown in January last year. Demand plummeted when internal distribution channels were severed, as Chinese consumers cancelled celebrations because of the lockdown. As China recovered, demand increased, but the next hurdles were logistical ones.
The product usually leaves Australia live, in the cargo hold of passenger flights. With passenger traffic between Perth and China grinding to a halt, subsidised charter flights were arranged by the Australian government via the International Freight Assistance Mechanism.
The first of these departed in April last year, primarily transporting 30,000kg of live lobsters on each flight. But with the ban on Australian lobsters imposed a few months later, no amount of transportation troubleshooting was getting lobsters onto the plates of diners in China.
The trade in lobsters is important not only to the fishers themselves but to the state of WA. For this reason, stakeholders have collaborated for decades to ensure the fishery is genuinely sustainable. Back in 2000, the western rock lobster industry became the world’s first fishery to be certified as sustainable by the international Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Certification standards by MSC are stringent and assess environmental impacts, bait usage, bycatch, fishing practices and stock assessment.
There are yearly surveillance audits and a status reassessment every five years. In 2017 the industry became the first fishery to be certified for a fourth consecutive time.
Responsibility for maintaining the industry’s sustainability falls to WA’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD). The department works collaboratively with industry to manage the sector through an integrated fisheries management approach, incorporating commercial and recreational fishing. DPIRD also conducts scientific research, develops policies and ensures compliance with the regulations.
The commercial fishery is managed through an annual Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC). That means each commercial licensed fisher is allocated a quota of lobster they are permitted to catch within that 12-month period. Each quota is allocated according to how many pots (lobster traps) a fisher is licensed to own.
Pots, and therefore annual quota, can be traded between licence holders.
RECOMMENDING A SUSTAINABLE TACC requires serious science, and responsibility for that lies with DPIRD’s principal research scientist for offshore crustaceans, Dr Simon de Lestang, and his team of about 10 scientists and research officers.
Simon explains that the TACC is adjusted each year, and much of the decision behind the adjustment hinges on complex computer modelling. Monitoring the abundance of baby lobsters, which are known as puerulus, provides a remarkably accurate forecast of the number of adult lobsters that will be available for fishing in four years.
To better understand the procedure, I’m joining Simon
and senior fisheries research officer Mark Rossbach on a small DPIRD runabout in the shallow waters of Alkimos Reef, off Perth’s northern suburbs.
Guided by a dot on the boat’s GPS screen, we speed towards a monitoring site. Simon explains that the modelling also factors in the fishing levels in preceding years and environmental influences that affect lobster survival, such as wind patterns, water temperature, and the strength of the Leeuwin Current which influences the life cycle of many WA marine species.
We reach the first buoy and it’s hauled into the boat. Simon and Mark examine the three panels suspended below the float. Attached to each is a hairy mat of polypropylene, designed to mimic natural seaweed, the preferred hiding place for puerulus.
Mark and Simon bang the panels 30 times over an inbuilt collecting tub, hoping to dislodge any puerulus, then pause to look for the clear, miniature lobsters. There are none, but I’m told that’s not unusual for a March sample, with most puerulus found here in November. Up and down the coast, puerulus collectors are checked each lunar cycle – 13 times a year.
The complex science and strict management are necessary for a sustainable fishery, Simon says. “We’ve learnt from the mistakes of the much older Mediterranean and US industries,” he says. “Often an ecosystem can be turned upside down, and never go back.”
Another group with a vested interest in the sustainability of the fishery is the Geraldton Fishermen’s
Co-operative (GFC). Traditionally, all fishers must sell their product through a licensed processor, part of ensuring lobsters are not illegally caught and traded. The largest processor by far in WA is GFC, which began in the town of Geraldton in 1950 and is owned by licensed fishers.
Today, GFC processes about 65 per cent of all western rock lobsters landed and has more than 50 receival points along the west coast, from Augusta to Shark Bay.
At the company’s live-holding facility in Geraldton, Glen Davidson, general manager of supply chain operations, explains that products received at this location come from Shark Bay to Dongara, south of Geraldton, and the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, 60km offshore. The GFC facility here handles about 2.2 million kilograms of lobster each year – about 30 per cent of the WA catch.
OUTSIDE ON THE dock, a cray boat skippered by Brendon Hancock has just arrived. The vessel is considered small, holding about a tonne of product – up to 2000 lobsters. Crates of lobsters are unloaded onto a conveyor belt and trundled into the processing shed, while boxes of bait are loaded for the next trip.
The complex science and strict management are necessary for a sustainable fishery.
On the dock, I learn lobster fishing is inherently a family affair. I meet Brendon’s dad, Barry, and in his arms is Brendon’s toddler son, Blake. Barry passes his eager grandson to the deckhand on board before explaining that Brendon is the fifth generation in his family to be fishing here, with his great-great-grandfather fishing off the Abrolhos in the 1930s.
Barry explains a bit about how the lobster fishing industry has changed since the days when it was managed via a fixed fishing season and pot numbers, rather than being limited by a quota. Many fishers had camps at the Abrolhos where they stayed frantically fishing for months during the season, sending their catch back to the co-op on a carrier boat.
“Mum taught us [by] correspondence,” Barry recalls. “And then when I worked for the old man, the season used to go from 15 March to 15 August. I used to have to sit over there on that rock, when I was 16, 17 – you can imagine how painful that was. I hated it!” He laughs.
Also waiting on the dock is Ken Lovedee, owner of the boat Aussie Dreams that’s being skippered by Brendon. Ken fished here himself for 40 years, but today he’s greeting his granddaughter and grandson, Emerson and Seth Nugent, who are both working as deckhands with Brendon. Ken says Emerson has designs on being a skipper herself one day.
A larger boat, owned and skippered by Jamie O’Byrne, arrives later and waiting for it is Jamie’s wife, Tiffany O’Byrne. The family owns a camp at Pigeon Island in the Abrolhos, and Jamie has been at sea fishing for three days. As a child, he spent months each year at the island with his parents and even attended school there.
Tiffany says the sustainability of the industr y is vital to families, and that passing businesses to future generations is as important as it’s ever been. “With the challenges now, a lot of deckhands are seeing more money out in the mines for less work,” she says.
The point is underlined when she introduces Jamie’s deckhands, who are the couple’s daughter, Kaiyla and son, Jasper. Jamie’s mum, who founded this business with his dad, is also here to greet the boat, as she is every time her son returns.
Back inside the processing shed, lobsters are being unloaded from a refrigerated truck. The catch has been sprayed with chilled sea water during its one-hour road journey from Port Gregory.
Some of the lobsters here will be sent to the GFC’s Fremantle facility for freezing before export. But most will end up at the Welshpool Live Lobster Export Facility near Perth Airport. Like the precious lobsters, I’m heading there too.
IJOIN GFC’s CEO, Matt Rutter, for a tour of the 4000sq.m facility, and before us stretches a array of holding tanks almost as far as the eye can see. Filled with sea water, they bubble with vigorous aeration and there’s a fresh, not unpleasant, seafood smell. Each lobster that arrives here will be rested in one of the tanks for at least 24 hours before being exported. This shed can hold 80t of lobster, making it the world’s largest live rock lobster– holding facility.
At the far end of the shed, a shipment has just arrived from Lancelin, 135km north of Perth Airport. Lobsters slide down a chute, onto a conveyor and the grading team flies into action. They place each crustacean on scales before allocating them a weight-based grade. One grader catches my eye with his lightning-fast movements, both arms spinning like a helicopter rotor, from conveyor to scales to grade-specific tubs.
Matt nods at my amazement. “We looked at automatic graders, but the cost and the quality of the result doesn’t compare with these guys,” he says. As we chat about grading, Matt explains that fishers themselves also grade for preferred size while they’re at sea, because demand for sizes varies throughout the year and by market, and fishers want their quota to bring the best price possible. “For example, in China if there was a festival in the south they’d like big crays,” he explains. “For the middle of China, I know they all like a single cray on the plate.”
Matt explains that the industry fishes to the maximum economic yield. Although the TACC could be set higher, fishers would have to work harder to fill their quota. There’d be fewer lobsters around, meaning fishers would need to travel further, spending more on fuel, bait and labour. And there’d be more lobsters available to the market. So the price per lobster would decrease slightly.
By adopting a conservative TACC, and ensuring lobsters remain easy to catch, fishers catch more product with each pot pull, making the same level of profit with less fishing input.
Also, less intense fishing means fewer potential impacts to wildlife and the environment, and more lobsters available for amateur fishers to catch.
In another section of the bustling facility, a packout is happening. A production line here sees lobsters dunked in cold water to calm them, before being
Passing businesses to future generations is as important as it’s ever been.
packed into boxes, where they can survive for more than 24 hours. To stop the crustaceans moving around and breaking limbs while in transit, they’re packed in wood shavings. “It’s just basically very dry pine, which is light, and we manufacture it ourselves just around the corner,” Matt says.
The sound of unfurling packing tape whirrs as different coloured tape is used to seal boxes of different consignments. GFC staff place the boxes on the airline’s own pallets and net them together as per airline instructions.
The facility has biosecurity clearance as an “export registered fish establishment”, and the Department of Home Affairs has approved GFC as a “known consignor”, meaning it is trusted to comply with airport security protocols.
Being a known consignor allows this pack-out to occur here on-site and the facility’s proximity to the airport minimises the lobsters’ time out of water. The pack-out finishes just two hours before this flight departs, bound for Singapore.
THE EXPLORATION of new markets for Aussie rock lobsters continues. “Our biggest markets after [mainland] China are the USA, Japan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and basically all of those have been affected with some form of COVID restrictions,” Matt explains. “When people come out of their holes and start socialising again, I think they’ll take advantage of the extra lobsters.”
Also taking advantage of extra lobsters in the past year is the WA public. In response to the export problems, and in collaboration with WRL, DPIRD modified the rules so that fishers were permitted to sell directly from the backs of their boats. Fishers now can each sell up to 200 lobsters per day like that, and Matt Taylor says this option has worked well, especially to meet local demand in December. He believes there’s a benefit in connecting the community to the industry.
“People come down, they see the boat, they talk to the fisher, they ask questions, they get on board, the kids get to hold lobsters,” he says. “For us that’s been huge. In a way COVID was useful in that it fast-tracked a system that we’d been requesting for a few years.”
Also taking advantage of extra lobsters in the past year is the WA public.
While many people buy lobsters, other members of the public choose to catch their own. Commercial fishing comprises 95 per cent of the total annual catch (TAC), with the recreational sector allocated 5 per cent.
The abundance of lobsters means that each year about 50,000 West Australians buy a recreational lobster fishing licence and put lobster on their family’s Christmas table.
“We believe we extract an extraordinary amount of value out of that 5 per cent of TAC,” says Dr Andrew Rowland, CEO of Recfishwest, the peak body representing recreational fishers in WA. This is more than catching food. The staggering popularity of ‘cray fishing’ today speaks of its importance to family traditions and modern WA’s coastal culture.
“Everybody along the west coast knows someone who goes and catches crays,” Andrew says. “During the ‘whites run’ the lobsters moult and they’re generally in abundance close to shore as they begin to migrate about the middle of November–December. That heralds an influx of people that chase them as well.
“People have their annual fishing teams and it’s like a ritual. It’s a really important part of their social connection.”
Andrew says most recreational fishers appreciate the rules that have led to these abundant lobsters.
“Being able to catch crayfish off the doorstep of a capital city is rare,” he says. “And the management has never been better.”
FOR ME, THERE’S only one thing left to do. It’s November during the whites run, and I’m jumping on board a friend’s boat to experience this cultural tradition. In a southern suburb of Perth, we join a flurry of 6am launching activity.
As the sun peeks over the hills in the east, we’re belting out across the chop for a 10km dash to the back of Garden Island where our pots have been set. The first is hauled up, exuding orange antennae and gangly legs and inside this treasure chest we find nine of the prized crustaceans.
I’m cheering, but it’s no surprise for the old hands on board. Pulling the other pots, our three licence holders quickly have their limit of eight lobsters each. Roaring back to shore, it’s all over in an hour. We debate the quickest takeaway coffee option, as my friends prepare to be in their city offices before 9am.
Back home I’m feeling smugly content, and I understand why catching crays is the holy grail for these recreational fishers. There’s something uplifting about spending sunrise on the ocean with friends, and sharing the excitement of this premium catch. But more than that, it’s the joy of knowing that one day our kids, and grandkids too, will be able to catch a lobster with their mates.