Swallowing the bait: is recreational fishing in Australia ecologically sustainable?

TLDR

Recreational fishing, a rapidly expanding component of global harvest, is largely overlooked in aquatic management yet can cause substantial ecological harm through biomass removal, by‑catch, trophic cascades, habitat disturbance, species introductions, and pollution. The study aims to address emerging issues of property rights and effective measures to prevent or manage large‑scale marine restocking in recreational fisheries. If monitoring and management of recreational fisheries are not revised to account for their broad ecological impacts, Australia risks unsustainable fishing and failing to meet international biodiversity protection commitments.

Abstract

Recreational fishing is a growing component of the total fishery harvest in many countries, but the impacts of this sector on aquatic resources are often ignored in the management of aquatic systems. Recreational fishing is open-access, and in many inshore regions, the recreational harvest exceeds the commercial harvest. The environmental impacts from recreational angling can be both ecologically significant and broad in scope and include: the removal of a considerable biomass of a wide variety of species; discarded by-catch; possible trophic cascades through the removal of higher order carnivores; impacts on habitat through bait harvesting; impacts of introduced and translocated species to support angling fisheries; direct impacts on sea-birds, marine mammals and reptiles; and angler generated pollution. Management, for several reasons, has largely ignored these environmental impacts from recreational fishing. Recreational fishing impacts are cumulative, whereas there is a tendency for consideration of impacts in isolation. Recreational fishing lobbyists have generally been successful in focusing public and political attention on other impacts such as commercial fishing, and recreational fishing has tended not to come under close scrutiny from conservation and environmental groups. Without changes to the monitoring and management of recreational fisheries that incorporate the broad ecological impacts from the activity, it may not be ecologically sustainable in the long term and Australia will not meet its international obligations of protecting aquatic biodiversity. The definition of property rights and appropriate measures to prevent or manage large scale marine restocking are two emerging issues that also need to be addressed.