Thank you crab fishers!
We’ve just had the 500th fisher fill out our survey on the social dimensions of Blue Swimmer Crab fishing! Given this milestone, it’s time to look at some of the results and see what people said... Note, all of the survey question options were chosen from those mentioned by crab fishers during face-to-face interviews done on the banks of estuaries and the most common answers included in the online survey
First off we looked at where and how often people crabbed. The Peel-Harvey was the stand out location, being fished by 64% of respondents, followed by the Swan (35%); but the frequency with which people went differed a lot ranging from 0 to 150 fishing trips per year.
Percentage of fishers that catch Blue Swimmer Crabs in various locations in south-western Australia.
The frequency with which Blue Swimmer Crab fishers go fishing.
We then wanted to know what motivates you to go crabbing. Fishing for ‘food’ was the most popular being selected by 91% of crabbers, but pleasure and spending time outdoors with family and friends were also key factors.
Percentage of fishers that selected each of the various motivations to catch Blue Swimmer Crabs.
In regards to the current state of the recreational crab fisheries
26% of people think the crab fisheries are well managed (42% disagree and 33% unsure)
68% think they need better management (9% disagree and 23 % unsure)
34% of people are happy with the number of crabs (48% disagree and 18% unsure)
Similarly, 38% are happy with the current size of crabs (49% disagree and 13% unsure)
and
86% of people would continue to fish if the population was restocked, with only 3% disagreeing.
When we asked people in interviews about the main issues affecting Blue Swimmer Crabs, the most popular answers included “over-fishing”, “low compliance”, “lack of education”, “pollution” and “climate change” or though that there are “no issues”.
When these and other popular options were pitched in the online survey most people agreed that taking undersized crabs (77%) and more than the bag limit (70%) and over-fishing (69%) were the main issues, with 62% of respondents (11 disagree and 27% unsure) thinking that recreational fishing has an important impact on crab stocks.
In terms of catch, most crabbers felt that both the number and size of crabs had decreased, and the number of people fishing for crabs had increased.
In the interviews, we asked, what do you think would happen if restocking of crabs occurred?
Crab fishers gave us six main answers
No change in the number of crabs
Increased number of crabs
More crabs to catch
More fishers fishing
Impacts on the environment
Increased fishing pressure
For the online survey we asked fishers how likely each answer was to occur. Crab fishers considered increased number crabs, more crabs to catch and more crabbers fishing as the most likely to occur and we unsure whether fishing pressure would increase and there would be any environmental impact. People though it was unlikely the restocking would not change the number of crabs.
According to the online survey, in general, crabbers thought that restocking was a positive thing. Next, we asked what they thought of restocking compared to other management options. There was wide support for the types of management options already in place (e.g. minimum size limits, seasonal closures) and for compliance officers and community education. Bag limits and restocking were considered generally very acceptable, but closed fishing zones and maximum size limits were not.
The level of acceptability of a range of management options that could be used to regulate Blue Swimmer Crab fisheries.
We then asked people, should any of the management regulations be changed? In terms of minimum size limits, bag limits and boat limits most people (~65%) thought they should stay the same, but 54% of people wanted the seasonal closure to be extended and a whopping 85 and 82% of crabbing thing more fishery officers and education was needed, respectively.
We hope this give you an insight in to what people thought about crabbing and restocking. We are now going to analyse these results in more detail and compare them to a similar survey on Black Bream so stay tuned for that. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to complete the surveys.
Best wishes
The Golden Fish Team