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Ocean Jackets are found along the southern half of Australia, with sustainable stocks in NSW, SA and Commonwealth waters. Stocks in VIC are undefined, with limited information available. Stocks are negligible in TAS.

Ocean Jackets are distributed along the southern half of Australia from Cape Moreton in Queensland around to North West Cape in Western Australia, including northern Tasmania [Kailola et al 1993]. Throughout their distribution, Ocean Jackets are found in many habitats. As juveniles they are found in estuaries and sheltered bays amongst seagrass beds of Zostera sp. and Posidonia sp. [Grove-Jones and Burnell 1991, Jones and West 2005]. Sub-adults and adults are found in different habitats such as rocky reefs, sandy–mud benthos, or sponge–coralline algae gardens in waters from 2–250 m [Grove-Jones and Burnell 1991, Hutchins 1999], where they are known to aggregate seasonally in large schools.

Little is known about the biological structure of the Ocean Jacket stock. Here, assessment of stock status is presented at the management unit level—Southeast Scalefish and Shark Fishery, Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector (Commonwealth); and at the jurisdictional level—New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector

Ocean Jacket is a non-quota by-product species and has not been the subject of formal stock assessments or analyses under the SESSF Harvest Strategy Framework [AFMA 2019]. A bycatch survey of the Great Australian Bight (GAB) stock in 2001 indicated that Ocean Jacket is often discarded [Knuckey and Brown 2002], with logbook-reported discards since the 2006–07 fishing season ranging between 0 to 51 per cent of the total catch. It has been noted that high discards potentially limit the use of commercial catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) as an index of abundance for this species [Moore et al. 2020].

In the GABTS, the standardised CPUE has been variable through time but the most recent CPUE (2017) was similar to that at the start of the time series (1986) and has remained relatively stable over the last seven years [Sporcic and Haddon 2018]. While there is a degree of uncertainty around the time series reflected by the 95 per cent confidence intervals, the CPUE has been above the mean of the time series since 2009 [Sporcic and Haddon 2018]. Landed catch of ocean jacket peaked in 2005 at 527 tonnes (t). It has decreased since, and been less than 250 t since 2008–09, with 148 t landed in the 2019–20 fishing season (170 t in 2018–19).

The above evidence indicates that the biomass of this stock is unlikely to be depleted and that recruitment is unlikely to be impaired. Furthermore, the current level of fishing mortality is unlikely to cause the overall stock to become recruitment impaired.

On the basis of the evidence presented above, Ocean Jacket in the Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector (Commonwealth) management unit is classified as a sustainable stock.

Southeast Scalefish and Shark Fishery

In the Commonwealth Trawl and Gillnet Hook and Trap sectors of the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) (CTS and GHAT), ocean jacket is a non-quota by-product species and has not been the subject of formal stock assessments or analyses under the SESSF Harvest Strategy Framework [AFMA 2019].

Commonwealth landed catch in the 2019–20 fishing season was 173.6 t (140 t in 2018-19 fishing season), which is combined for the CTS and Scalefish Hook sector of the GHAT. While uncertainty over discarding of the species remains, discards were estimated to be 219.8 t based on the weighted average of the previous four fishing seasons (2015–16 to 2018–19) [Burch et al. 2019]. A standardised catch per unit effort (CPUE) time series suggests that the abundance of Ocean Jacket increased between 2003 and 2007. Since 2007, standardised CPUE has continued to remain relatively high, despite a slight decline since 2013 [Sporcic and Haddon 2018]. The standardised CPUE has remained above the mean of the time series since 2004 [Sporcic and Haddon, 2018]. The above evidence indicates that the biomass of this stock is unlikely to be depleted and that recruitment is unlikely to be impaired. Further, 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 presented above, Ocean Jacket in the south east SESSF (Commonwealth) management unit is classified as a sustainable stock.

Ocean Jacket biology [Kailola et al. 1993, Miller et al. 2010, Miller and Stewart 2012]

Commonwealth – Commercial (Management Methods/Catch) Data provided for the Commonwealth align with the Commonwealth Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery for the 2018-19 financial year.

Commonwealth – Recreational The Commonwealth does not manage recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters. Recreational fishing in Commonwealth waters is managed by the state or territory immediately adjacent to those waters, under its management regulations.  

Commonwealth – Indigenous The Australian government does not manage non-commercial Indigenous fishing in Commonwealth waters, with the exception of Torres Strait. In general, non-commercial Indigenous fishing in Commonwealth waters is managed by the state or territory immediately adjacent to those waters.

New South Wales – Indigenous (Management Methods)  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.

1. AFMA 2019, Harvest strategy framework for the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery 2009 (amended 2019), Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Canberra.
2. Burch, P, Althaus, F & Thomson, R 2019, Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF) catches and discards for TAC purposes using data until 2018, Prepared for the SERAG Meeting, 3-4 December 2019, Hobart, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Tasmania.
3. Grove-Jones RP, Burnell AF 1991, Fisheries biology of the Ocean Jacket (Monacanthidae: Nelusetta ayraudi) in the eastern waters of the Great Australian Bight. South Australian Department of Fisheries. FIRDC Project DFS01Z, Final report 107 pp.
4. Hutchins, BJ 1999. Leatherjackets. In Andrew, NL Under southern Seas. The ecology of Australia’s rocky reefs. University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney. pp 195–202.
5. Jones MV and West, R.J 2005, Spatial and temporal variability of seagrass fishes in intermittently closed and open coastal lakes in southeastern Australia. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 64: 277-288.
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8. Knuckey IA and Brown LP 2002. Assessment of bycatch in the Great Australian Bight Trawl Fishery, final report to FRDC, report 2000/169, FRDC, Canberra.
9. Krueck N, Hartmann, K and Lyle J 2020, Tasmanian Scalefish Fishery Assessment 2018/19. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.
10. Miller, ME and Stewart, J 2009, The commercial fishery for ocean leatherjackets (Nelusetta ayraudi, Monacanthidae) in New South Wales, Australia, Asian Fisheries Science, 22: 257–264.
11. Miller, ME and Stewart, J 2012, Reproductive characteristics of the ocean leatherjacket, Nelusetta ayraudi. Reviews of Fish Biology and Fisheries.
12. Miller, ME, Stewart, J and West, RJ 2010, Using otoliths to estimate age and growth of a large Australian endemic monocanthid, Nelusetta ayraudi (Quoy and Gaimard, 1824). Environmental Bioliology of Fishes, 88: 263–271
13. Moore B, Lyle J and Hartmann K 2018, Tasmanian Scalefish Fishery Assessment 2016/17. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania.
14. Moore, A, Maloney, L and Mobsby, D 2020, Great Australian Bight Trawl Sector, in H Patterson, J Larcombe, J Woodhams and R Curtotti (ed.s), Fishery status reports 2020, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, Canberra https://doi.org/10.25814/5f447487e6749.
15. Murphy, J.J., Ochwada-Doyle, F.A., West, L.D., Stark, K.E. and Hughes, J.M., 2020, The NSW Recreational Fisheries Monitoring Program - survey of recreational fishing, 2017/18. NSW DPI - Fisheries Final Report Series No. 158.
16. Sporcic M and Haddon, M, 2018, Statistical CPUE Standardizations for selected SESSF species (data to 2017). CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart.
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18. West, LD, Stark, KE, Murphy, JJ, Lyle, JM and Ochwada-Doyle, FA 2015, Survey of Recreational Fishing in New South Wales and the ACT, 2013/14. NSW DPI – Fisheries Final Report Series No. 149.