A commercial fisherman affected by the Cook Government’s decision to permanently close the West Coast bioregion from Kalbarri to Augusta for demersal fishing says it should be mandatory for recreational boat fishers to provide data on their catch on the day they fish.

When the government announced major demersal fishing changes last month it said the latest scientific stock assessments for WA’s demersal fish had shown several species were under severe threat.

Premier Roger Cook said species such as dhufish and snapper were on the verge of extinction in some parts of WA, so they needed to take urgent action to save them for the future generations of fishers.

Adrian Lippi, who operated out of Lancelin and Jurian Bay, said the government claimed to have done the done the science but fishers had been catching more and bigger fish than ever before.

“They say ‘we’ve done the science’, (when in fact) all the science comes from commercial fishers and the charter sector,’’ he said.

“So all we’ve got to do is put our science together and say, ‘well, you know, why isn’t your science matching up with ours’?

“Because we give the data on the day – we need to weigh our fish on the day when it hits the shore and document it, and then we keep one copy and then send them a copy.

“So if our data is so different to theirs where’s it going wrong?’’

Mr Lippi, who comes from a commercial rock lobster fishing family, said there was a need for recreational fishers to submit data via an app on the day they fished.

“They need to mandatorily login and report their catch when they come in, before they hit the shore.

“If they don’t, there’s got to be a penalty, because we need to know what they’re catching, because the recreational sector is the only sector where they have no idea what they’re catching.’’

The WA Fishing Industry Council (WAFIC) has been calling for all fishing effort to be tightly controlled and accurately reported with increased monitoring and compliance including adapting the existing Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) developed recreational reporting app on fishcatchWA to provide close-to real-time data.

At present the data is only available from DPIRD’s statewide surveys of boat-based recreational fishing, which it carries out every two to three years.

The most recent WA recreational boat fishing survey is based on 2023-24 data and only involved about 8000 fishers.

Meanwhile, the Fisheries research report Western Australia No. 352 (the Boat-based recreational fishing in Western Australia 2023-24 report) dated July 2025 and tabled in Parliament said on average, 130,000 recreational fishers buy a recreational boat fishing licence each year (DPIRD 2024) with 50 per cent of licence holders residing in the Perth metropolitan area.

Yanchep News Online has found a Status of Australian fish stocks report on West Australian Dhufish (2023) archived on the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation with data about the prized fish, which is endemic to WA and is also one of the species Mr Cook said was on the verge of extinction in some parts of the state.

Dhufish have been found off the Recherche Archipelago near Esperance and as far north as Shark Bay but are most common along WA’s lower west coast between Kalbarri and Augusta in the West Coast bioregion.

The Status of Australian fish stocks report said in 2022 in WA 8 tonne of dhufish was caught by the charter boat sector, 53 tonne (in 2022) by the commercial sector, an unknown quantity by the Indigenous sector and 114 tonne between September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021 caught by the recreational sector.

“Annual catches of West Australian dhufish, which are primarily taken in the West Coast bioregion, show a gradual increase from around 150 tonne in the mid-1970s to a peak close to 500 tonne in the mid-2000s,’’ the report said.

“The retained catches of this species in Western Australia have fluctuated between 170 and 210 tonne annually since 2010, when significant management action was taken for both the commercial and recreational sectors to reduce fishing effort and catch of demersal scalefish in the West Coast bioregion.

“Around 70 per cent of these recent catches have been retained by recreational (including charter) line fishers.’’

On December 18 Recfishwest chief executive officer Andrew Rowland said the government’s assessment for pink snapper did not reflect what fishers had been experiencing out on the water, with many reporting the fishing had been as good as it had been in many years, and fishers were seeing plenty of snapper of various sizes.

“While the assessment indicates pink snapper biomass remains below long-term target levels, it also shows that biomass has increased in recent years, suggesting the stock is trending in a positive direction,’’ he said.

“(But) like many fishers we agree that there is a problem with dhufish and that dhufish fishing is a shadow of what it used to be 10-20 years ago.

WAFIC said the free app developed by DPIRD had been around for a while.

“To date, the government has refused to make it mandatory, despite previously saying it would be a mandatory requirement,’’ (a WAFIC spokesman said).

“The app will provide close-to real-time data for recreational fishing effort, instead of current methods which are about three-years-old.”

WAFIC also said with dhufish it was important to remember spawning was not as cyclical as some species so they may not spawn every year.

This article appeared on Yanchep News Online on 18 January 2026.