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Eastern School Prawn fisheries occur along the east coast of Australia and Victoria. Stock status is sustainable in QLD and NSW, and is classified as undefined in VIC.

Eastern School Prawn fisheries occur along the east coast of Australia, in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Genetic work on the biological stock structure of this species is limited. There is evidence for some minor genetic differentiation of Eastern School Prawn in the Tweed River and Noosa River from Eastern School Prawn in other estuaries, but estuaries within New South Wales appear to be generally genetically homogenous [Mulley and Latter 1981]. No genetic information is available for Victorian populations.

As a result of uncertainty regarding the biological stock structure of Eastern School Prawn, assessment of stock status is presented at the jurisdictional level—Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

New South Wales

Eastern School Prawn is commercially fished throughout most of its range in New South Wales, although there has been limited harvest south of latitude 35°S in recent years. Eastern School Prawn is a fast-growing, fast-maturing and short-lived species which generally exhibits high productivity [Racek 1959], but observations of recruitment and catch indicate substantial influence of environmental conditions (especially rainfall) [Ruello 1973; Pinto and Maheshwari 2012]. Simulation modelling has also established that environmental factors can have a strong influence on Eastern School Prawn catches [Ives et al. 2009]. These traits mean this species displays large inter-annual variations in recruitment. Taylor [2023] reports the outcomes of analysis of standardised catch rates, as well as a Surplus Production Model fitted using the datalowSA R package [Haddon et al. 2018]. A summary of these outcomes is provided below.

Taking into account environmental variability (including drought) and potential effects of these factors on recruitment in Eastern School Prawn, standardised catch rates (as a proxy for stock biomass) were stable and showed no indication of a downward trend in recent years. For both the Estuary Prawn Trawl and Ocean Prawn Trawl, standardised CPUE substantially increased during the period post-FY2006, and despite some variability, recent Estuary Prawn Trawl CPUE has remained at a level that is well elevated to the geometric mean for the FY1985–FY2022 time series. There was however a sharp dip in FY2018 that was likely to be drought-related, and a sharp dip in FY2022 that was likely due to protracted and catastrophic flooding across the NSW coast during the summer-autumn of this period. The Surplus Production Model [Taylor 2023] estimated that mean predicted biomass has remained above B_targ for the previous 17 years, and the depletion ratio is currently estimated at 0.76. The current biomass estimate for the stock of approximately 8,300 tonnes (t) is well above B_targ (5,218 t). The above evidence indicates that the biomass of this stock is unlikely to be depleted and that recruitment is unlikely to be impaired.

The estimated harvest rate has remained below F_targ (0.2) for the past two decades, and is currently approximately half this value. The harvest rate declined from 2012–18, but increased slightly following this. The low harvest rate has likely contributed to an increase in the stock biomass over this period. The above evidence indicates that the current level of fishing mortality is unlikely to cause the stock to become recruitment impaired.

On the basis of the evidence provided above, Eastern School Prawn in New South Wales is classified as a sustainable stock.

Eastern School Prawn biology [Ruello 1971, Taylor and Johnson 2021]

Distribution of reported commercial catch of Eastern School Prawn

Queensland – Indigenous (management methods) for more information see Traditional fishing | Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland (daf.qld.gov.au) 

Queensland – Commercial (Catch). QLD commercial and charter data are sourced from the commercial fisheries logbook program. Further information available through the Queensland Fisheries Summary Report.

New South Wales – Commercial (Management Methods) Size limit – Prawn counts apply to commercial fisheries in NSW and serve as a proxy to size limit.

New South Wales – Indigenous (Management Methods) see https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/aboriginal-fishing.

New South Wales – Recreational (Catch) Murphy et al. [2020].

Victoria – Indigenous (Management Methods) A person who identifies as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is exempt from the need to obtain a Victorian recreational fishing licence, provided they comply with all other rules that apply to recreational fishers, including rules on equipment, catch limits, size limits and restricted areas. Traditional (non-commercial) fishing activities that are carried out by members of a traditional owner group entity under an agreement pursuant to Victoria’s Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 are also exempt from the need to hold a recreational fishing licence, subject to any conditions outlined in the agreement. Native title holders are also exempt from the need to obtain a recreational fishing licence under the provisions of the Commonwealth’s Native Title Act 1993.

Commercial catch of Eastern School Prawn - note confidential catch not shown

1. Bureau of Meteorology Hydrologic Reference Stations 2022, Average annual streamflow anomaly plots, Queensland Logan-Albert Rivers and South Coast Basins.
2. Glaister, J, 1978, The Impact of River Discharge on Distribution and Production of the School Prawn Metapenaeus macleayi (Haswell) (Crustacea : Penaeidae) in the Clarence River Region, Northern New South Wales, Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 29: 311-23.
3. Glaister, JP 1978, Impact of river discharge on distribution and production of School Prawn Metapenaeus macleayi (Haswell) (Crustacea-Penaeidae) in Clarence River region, northern New South Wales. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 29: 311-323
4. Haddon, M 2018, simpleSA: A package containing functions to facilitate relatively simple stock assessments. R package version 0.1.18.
5. Ives, MC, Scandol, JP, Montgomery, SS and Suthers, IM 2009, Modelling the possible effects of climate change on an Australian multi-fleet prawn fishery, Marine and Freshwater Research, 60: 1211-1222
6. Mulley, J, Latter, B 1981, Geographic differentiation of eastern Australian penaeid prawn populations, Marine and Freshwater Research, 32: 889–895.
7. Murphy, JJ, Ochwada-Doyle, FA, West, LD, Stark, KE and Hughes, JM 2020, The NSW Recreational Fisheries Monitoring Program - survey of recreational fishing, 2017/18. NSW DPI - Fisheries Final Report Series No. 158
8. Pinto, U, Maheshwari, B 2012, Impacts of water quality on the harvest of school prawn (Metapenaeus macleayi) in a peri-urban river system, Journal Of Shellfish Research, 31: 847–853.
9. Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries 2018, An ecological risk assessment of the East Coast Trawl Fishery in southern Queensland including the River and Inshore Beam Trawl Fishery, Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Brisbane.
10. Racek, AA 1959, Prawn investigations in eastern Australia, State Fisheries Research Bulletin, 6: 1–57.
11. Rowling, K, Hegarty, A and Ives, M 2010, Status of fisheries resources in NSW 2008–09, New South Wales Industry and Investment, Cronulla.
12. Ruello, NV 1971, Some aspects of the ecology of the school prawn Metapenaeus macleayi in the Hunter region of New South Wales. MSc Thesis, University of Sydney
13. Ruello, NV 1973, Influence of rainfall on distribution and abundance of school prawn Metapenaeus macleayi in Hunter River Region (Australia), Marine Biology, 23: 221–228.
14. Taylor, MD 2023, Status of Australian Fish Stocks 2022—NSW Stock Status Summary—Eastern School Prawn (Metapenaeus macleayi).
15. Taylor, MD, and Johnson, DD 2022, Adaptive spatial management to deal with postflood inshore bycatch in a penaeid trawl fishery. North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 42: 334-342.
16. Walton, L, Jacobsen, I, and Zeller, B 2019, River and Inshore Beam Trawl Fishery Scoping Study. Technical Report. State of Queensland, Brisbane.