Lobster with chips please!

TASMANIAN researchers hope they are on the verge of developing the world’s first electronic data collection system for rock lobster.

This month, while the fishery is closed, staff from the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute will attach external microchip tags under the tails of about 1500 lobsters off the south coast.

When the season opens in November, receivers aboard commercial boats will automatically detect and record individually numbered tags as lobsters are emptied from catching pots to either stripping bins or live wells.A number of seafood exporters will have similar receivers in their live holding tanks. The combined data will be used to improve estimates of lobster numbers and set optimal harvest rates.

The TAFI-commercial fishery collaboration is part of a three year FRDC project designed to produce tagging methods that meet differing fishery situations.

South Australian company Hallprint Pty Ltd designed the new electronic marker (see top left), which combines microchip technology within a conventional T-bar external tag.

“The number of tagged lobsters caught and subsequently reported varies during the fishing season – and from one season to another,” TAFI’s Craig Mackinnon said.

“To provide accurate estimates of stock size we need both consistent and high reporting rates.

“Microchip tags and receivers will automatically provide 100 per cent reporting rates, which we will use to scale results from the rest of the fishery.

“And high reporting rates mean fewer fish have to be tagged,” he said.

Unlike internal tags used in some other fish species, the external tags have significant advantages:

Fast application
High retention
Minimum mortality
Superior food safety
Electronic and visual detection and reporting
Previously, to improve tag reporting rates, TAFI had changed the tagging position from the underside to the topside of the tail, just behind the carapace, where they tended to be nibbled by other animals and abraded.

“Fishers don’t need to see them now, so we’re putting them under the tails for higher retention,” Stewart Frusher said.

The electronic initiative follows the fishery’s decision to base its stock assessments on tag recapture models being developed by TAFI rather than the commercial catch rate data previously used.

“The fishery operates under an annual total allowable commercial catch. The basic question is how many lobsters are there and how many can we catch sustainably,” Craig Mackinnon said.

“The underlying assumption in using commercial catch data is that a change in catch rate is a relative measure of the change in abundance. “But it was never that simple. Catch rates are a complex mix of biological factors such as recruitment, catchability and lobster behaviour and of fishing dynamics, such as season, depth, market price and costs of fishing,” he said.

The researchers say fisher support has been tremendous, with reporting of standard T-bar tags increasing dramatically in anticipation of the microchip trial, which will run for two seasons.

MORE: Craig Mackinnon, email Craig.Mackinnon@utas.edu.au; Stewart Frusher, email Stewart.Frusher@utas.edu.au; David Hall, email davidhall@hallprint.com.au

(note: above article is published with the permission of the Commonwealth Government's Fisheries Research and Development Corporation - taken from "R&D News" of October 2004)

Vale Michael (Mike) Hall 5 February 1938 - 12 April 2003

Michael (Mike) Hall was born in Yorkshire in 1938, the youngest of six children of Joseph and Mary. Young Michael soon learned that nothing was achieved without hard work, perseverance and initiative. It was in the genes. His father Joseph lost a leg in World War I at 19 yet lived a successful life raising a large family and living to the age of 95.

Mike met his beloved life-long partner Wendy at school in the UK when they were both only in their mid-teens. Mike and Wendy headed to Australia in the mid 1960s looking for greener pastures. Like his own father, Mike had to fight medical adversity losing much of his stomach to an ulcer in his late teens. He also held a variety of sales and marketing jobs until realising that he could only really work for one person in life – himself. Hallprint was formed in 1972 and Mike and Wendy commenced making printed labels for a living.

Hallprint developed into a successful producer of high quality labels during the 1970s. During this period, Mike also fought crippling arthritis. Not only did Mike defy medical prognoses that would have had him in a wheelchair at 40, by the time the 1980s came around he was looking for a new challenge. Mike’s son David, a fisheries biologist, challenged Mike to manufacture for him a superior fish tag for his research program.

After much research and development work in unison with David and a number of other fishery biologists, Mike succeeded in his goal to produce high technology external tags and Hallprint commenced commercial production of fish tags in the early 1980s. By 1985, Hallprint ceased production of printed labels and has specialised in the production of fish tags ever since.

Mike was highly innovative in the field of fish tag design and loved his work with a passion. He had a special ability to make every customer feel that they were the only one that mattered. Just as he did with his son David, he spoke at length with each and every biologist that showed an interest in designing the right tag for their specific situation. With wife Wendy, Mike established Hallprint as an innovative, high quality, reliable and respected supplier of numbered fish tags and in so doing made a substantial and lasting contribution to fisheries science and fisheries management. This success is reflected in the management actions and many significant publications that have arisen from research programs that have successfully used Hallprint tags.

Along the way Mike and Wendy travelled to all parts of the globe to meet with customers and promote their products. They made some very special friendships along the way with key fisheries people and their spouses and, aside from his influence on their career, Mike’s loss has undoubtedly been an emotional and sad event for a significant number of fisheries professionals and their families. Mike was especially pleased to see his son David, an experienced fisheries researcher and R&D manager, take over the reins during 2002 when he first became ill and ensure that the company that he built not only continued but remained in safe family hands.

For at the end of the day, notwithstanding his magnificent contribution to fisheries science and his success in business and life generally, nothing really mattered more to Mike than Wendy and his family, including his 3 children and the 6 grandchildren that he cherished so much.

He is so dearly missed by Wendy, their children Caroline (& Enzo), Jill and David (& Leanne) and grandchildren Melanie, Jennifer, Isabella, Serena, Hugo and Sebastian.