Complications arise because these fisheries interact. For example, eastern king prawns targeted by the Ocean Prawn Trawl are caught by the Estuary General Fishery when they are small and living in the estuaries. They are simply catching the same species at different stages in their life-cycle. Such conflicts about allocation of resources are among the most difficult issues facing managers and scientists. The scientific problem is understanding the impact of harvesting small estuarine prawns on the ocean catches of larger prawns.
Prawns have great natural mortality.
In a general sense, the prawns are owned by the public. We license commercial fishers to harvest prawns and we also allow recreational fishing of this public resource. But this does not answer the question of how much ownership can an ocean prawn trawl fisherman have of small eastern king prawns when they are in estuaries. Such consultation and communication are the first steps to resolving the complex issues. Staff and students at The Centre for Research on the Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities have been working on aspects of the small prawn issue.