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13/08/2005: "ABALONE DIVER 1967"
Commercial fishing for abalone began in the early 1960s with annual catch rates of between 200 and 400 tonnes, peaking at 1,200 tonnes in 1971. However, by 1977 a combination of heavy fishing and bad storms caused catches to fall to around 300 tonnes.
Concern about the state of the resource led a 1979 Parliamentary inquiry to recommend that the abalone and sea urchin fishery become a restricted entry fishery. This occurred in the following year when only 59 divers were granted access to the restricted fishery - down from more than 100 divers in 1979.
The number of divers was progressively reduced to address excessive fishing effort and now stands at 42. Individual catch quotas were introduced in 1989.
The share management scheme began in 1996 and in early 2000 the abalone share management plan was gazetted. There are currently 48 shareholders with most of them using nominated divers.
Source: www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au
Footnote: No mention in the above fisheries text of the years of pleading by divers for some form of size protection to prevent grossly under-sized abalone being taken.
Abalone the size of 50 cent coins were taken from Tathra NSW area, for example, by greedy professional divers who had no care for the future. The fisheries department was slow to act, in the 1960's, according to some in the industry who supplied this information.
VICTORIA
The commercial fishery commenced in 1962. The fishery has been relatively stable and remunerative.
At present there are eighteen processors operating, with most being concentrated in the Central Zone. There are 71 licensed divers.
The combined Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC) for the fishery is currently 1,359 tonnes with an estimated landed value of $AUD60M at 2002/03 average prices.
(Tasmania has a quota of about 2,500 tonnes to be taken each year).
Picture: Profesional licensed diver, Clarke Espie at Mallacoota, Victoria where the abalone were always more plentiful and larger than the NSW grounds.
Abalone poacher 'gives up'
By Mark Phillips
01aug05
THE birth of twins in March may have achieved what fisheries authorities failed to do for three decades: force Australia's most notorious abalone poacher to give up the game.
A Melbourne court was told today that David Campbell 'Cam' Strachan – who has led enforcement officers and police on cat and mouse chases for 35 years – wanted to hang up his pirate flag.
Nothing previously had been able to stop him: neither jail nor more than $1 million in fines and property seizures since his first poaching charge in 1970.
But Strachan's lawyer, Philip Dunn, QC, told the Victorian County Court that the birth of Strachan's twins was a catalyst in the 53-year-old Melbourne Grammar-educated man's decision to go straight.
For years, Strachan was the kingpin in a thriving black market for poached abalone, teasing authorities in several high-speed chases on the high seas - which included helicopters and arrests at gunpoint.
But he has also clocked up scores of convictions in two states.
"He has been a serious pirate of the sea but the pirate has hung up his flag because the game is not worth the candle any more," Mr Dunn told Judge Margaret Rizkalla today.
Strachan, of East Brighton, is appealing against an 18-month jail sentence imposed by a Melbourne magistrate last year for selling 690kg of poached abalone (about 6525 individual abalone) to an undercover fisheries officer.
In doing so, he breached a 10-year prohibition from possessing even a single abalone, a highly sought-after seafood delicacy particularly popular in Asian cuisine.
Victoria and Tasmania are two of the last viable abalone habitats in the world, but the species is threatened even there, and fishing is strictly regulated through licences.
When Strachan sold the abalone in the middle of 2003, he had only just been released from jail after serving a nine-month sentence, and had a further suspended sentence hanging over him, from a previous conviction in June 2002.
He also owed more than $600,000 in penalties and fines for offences in Tasmanian waters.
"He is a marked man," Mr Dunn told the court. "He might as well have a skull and crossbones on the back of his boat when he launches into the water."
Mr Dunn said three factors had led to Strachan turning his life around.
First, he was being treated for a psychological condition similar to bi-polar disorder, he said.
Second he had begun a boat-building business with the assistance of a $600,000 investment from an acquaintance.
But the biggest change was becoming a father again to twins born prematurely in March.
Robert Johnston, for Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), said Strachan had shown a "persistent, gross disregard of the law" and should be punished accordingly.
The DPP is seeking a sentence of up to five years in jail and $140,000 in fines, plus more than $27,000 in costs for money paid to Strachan in the undercover sting.
Strachan is not opposing a lifetime ban on possessing, harvesting, fishing or processing abalone, which would also prevent him from being on board any registered fishing boat in Victorian waters.
Judge Rizkalla has reserved her decision until next Monday.
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David Campbell 'Cam' Strachan. A previous abalone poaching case study.
10 December 2004 in Melbourne's magistrates court, David Campbell Strachan pleaded guilty to 21 abalone poaching offences and was sentenced to an 18-month prison term.
Since 1971, Strachan has received in excess of 100 abalone poaching convictions, fines totalling more than $1 million and more than 10 years of prison sentences, including suspended terms.
Three of his boats have been confiscated in Tasmania, and legislation was introduced in that state to ban Strachan from the state's waters in anything smaller than a Bass Strait ferry.
