SA SNAPPER ALTERNATIVES
The announcement by Minister Whetstone to protect SA’s iconic snapper for a period of three years has shocked a lot of fisho’s and businesses here in our home state. It wasn’t a decision taken lightly given the compounding implications, but Minister Whetstone stood up and made that tough call when the previous government tiptoed around the subject for years.
The snapper biomass in SA – especially in our two Gulfs – has been on a downward spiral for years and something needed to happen. There are a lot of disgruntled fishers across our state, from recreational and charter to commercial fishers and yes, it is going to impact us all.
We still have some numbers of fish over select grounds and given a couple of successful spawning seasons and recruitment we should start to see the numbers re-build, which will benefit us all. It’s easy to point the finger and blame mismanagement in years gone by, or to point the finger at the commercial sector alone, but we need to move on from that and focus on the bigger picture; letting
