Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641:body:0:p32
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2017L00641
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 98692–101855

the benthic environment are discussed in Section 4H Habitat modification.

Domestic fisheries bycatch
The Recovery Plan for Marine Turtles in Australia – July 2003 identified bycatch as one of the greatest threats to marine turtles in Australia. Since then significant steps have been taken to reduce fishery-turtle interactions in Australian waters. The introduction of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) in trawl fisheries has dramatically reduced turtle mortalities when used correctly, with fewer captures and the majority being released alive[23]. It should be noted that TED's are not mandatory in all state/territory fisheries. In addition, the use of de-hookers and line cutters in long-line fisheries has also improved marine turtle survival as they facilitate the live release of turtles captured on gear[177]. Despite the advances in technologies, the post release survivorship following a fisheries interaction is still not well understood. Other bycatch mitigation initiatives include spatial closures for certain gear types in high risk areas or temporal closure during nesting seasons. Many state run shark control programs had also replaced nets with drum-lines and many fisheries utilise animal release teams.
There are also still 'hot spots' for fishery-turtle interactions, such as the Gulf of Carpentaria where the highest rates of turtle/fishery interactions have been reported. Over a quarter of the turtles captured in Commonwealth trawl fisheries (2000-2013) were not identified to species[196]. There is concern that the olive ridley turtle, which has seen large population reductions in western Cape York, may comprise a large portion of these unidentified turtles. Additionally, 23 per cent of all turtle interactions in Commonwealth fishery logbooks were leatherback turtles[196], with some bycatch being reported in state fisheries[196]. It is important to note that this study only had bycatch data from Commonwealth, Queensland and the Northern Territory fisheries and was lacking fisheries bycatch data from the other five states. Further, discrepancies between fishery logbook reports and observer data/stranding reports suggests that the actual number of marine turtle interactions with fisheries was potentially underestimated[16, 101, 196]. Again, not all fisheries have mandatory monitoring and/or reporting requirements. Technologies such as electronic monitoring in fisheries may enable a better estimation of actual turtle interaction rates.
Novel approaches are also required to minimise interactions with gear types such as pots[164], which continue to be problematic for marine turtles. Of particular concern are the interactions of loggerhead turtles with crab pots in Queensland and leatherback turtles in the South Australian, Victorian and Tasmanian lobster pot fisheries[16, 136]. Leatherback deaths from entanglement in cray pot fisheries may be the 'most significant cause of death from human-related activities' in Australian continental shelf waters[136]. This is concerning considering the decline in the number of nesting female leatherback turtles in Australia.
Fisheries interactions are generally considered on