Our Great Barrier Reef is home to incredible wildlife, including iconic species like sawfish, sea snakes, and rare sharks and rays found nowhere else on earth.
But these species are easily caught as bycatch in the Queensland Trawl Fishery where they can be injured and killed by the weight of the catch.
Fishers are required to report these interactions and unfortunately, many don’t. Accurate data on the scale of the problem is not available. This needs to change; we need a clear picture of what is being caught if we want a future for our threatened ocean wildlife.
Cameras on boats are the solution.
They can provide 100% coverage and the accurate data we need to help threatened species populations recover.
The Queensland Government is currently consulting on whether they should introduce electronic monitoring cameras to the trawl fishery. These cameras are essential in high-risk fisheries like trawl and are a key part of best practice fisheries management.
Please add your name to urge the Queensland Government to put cameras on all trawl boats to collect accurate data and protect threatened species – before the consultation period closes on 31 August (recently extended).
Image: A sea snake caught and discarded from a QLD trawler.