Large‐scale translocation of Southern Rock Lobsters, Jasus edwardsii , in Tasmania has been conducted for over two decades. This involves moving slow‐growing lobsters from deep‐water areas to inshore, warmer areas to increase growth rates and improve commercial characteristics, especially shell color. Economic benefits of translocation have been sufficient to commercially fund movement of more than 1.2 million lobsters from Fe...

Australia’s fisheries have experience in responding individually to specific shocks to stock levels (for example, marine heatwaves, floods) and markets (for example, global financial crisis, food safety access barriers). The COVID-19 pandemic was, however, novel in triggering a series of systemic shocks and disruptions to the activities and operating conditions for all Australia’s commercial fisheries sectors including those o...

Population structure of many marine organisms is spatially patchy and varies within and between years, a phenomenon defined as chaotic genetic patchiness. This results from the combination of planktonic larval dispersal and environmental stochasticity. Additionally, in species with bi‐partite life, postsettlement selection can magnify these genetic differences. The high fecundity (up to 500,000 eggs annually) and protracted la...

The literature on sustainable diets is broad in its scope, and application yet is consistently supportive of a move away from animal‐based diets towards more plant‐based diets. The positioning of seafood within the sustainable diet literature is less clear. A literature review was conducted to examine how the environmental impacts of seafood consumption are assessed and what conclusions are being drawn about the inclusion of s...

Temporal and spatial trends in settlement of the southern rock lobster, Jasus edwardsii , were examined to identify the influence of environmental variables over different spatial scales. Settlement data were collected from 1994 to 2011 along the Southern Australian and New Zealand coasts. We identified common settlement trends at a regional scale (100–500 km): the magnitude of settlement at sites from South Australia ( SA ) a...

The capture of target species using pots or traps can be affected by interactions that occur inside fishing gear. In the Tasmanian southern rock lobster ( Jasus edwardsii ) fishery ( SRLF ), predation by octopus is known to vary spatially, assumed to be in response to different environmental and ecological conditions. However, these effects are not well understood and there is concern that changes in the system, as a result of...

Successful individual transferable quota ( ITQ ) management requires a binding (constraining) total allowable catch ( TAC ). A non‐binding TAC may result in a shift back towards open access conditions, where fishers increasingly compete (‘race’) to catch their share of the total harvest. This process was examined by comparing fishing fleet behaviour and profitability in the T asmanian southern rock lobster ( J asus edwardsii )...

Tag reporting rate is an important parameter required for estimating fishing and natural mortality in fished populations. It is an extremely difficult parameter to estimate and can vary both during the fishing season and between fishing years. Improving tag reporting rates has been identified as a cost‐effective way of improving precision in fishing and natural mortality estimates derived from tagging data. In this study we ev...

Southern rock lobster Jasus edwardsii varies in shell coloration throughout southern Australia. Predominantly exported as a live product to Asian markets, price is influenced by colour with prices higher for dark red than paler coloured lobsters, which are discounted. This paper explores spatial and depth variation in shell colour for the Tasmanian, South Australian and Victorian fisheries using catch sampling data. The propor...

Lobster stock enhancement efforts have generally met with limited success owing, in part, to low survival of reseeded juveniles caused by poor development of anti‐predator behaviour. We found that recently‐settled juvenile lobsters reared in captivity for 1 year exhibit significantly higher levels of daytime activity than their like‐sized wild counterparts and that this daytime activity could be reduced by 50% by either rearin...

The success of enhancement programmes hinges on the survival of released animals. One factor greatly influencing short‐term survival of reseeded lobsters is the timing and intensity of predation relative to the time of release. The activity and abundance of predators varies over daily, seasonal, and annual scales and knowing the best time to release juveniles will minimise mortality. We used chronographic tethering devices and...