The commercially and recreationally important Perth Metropolitan Roe’s Abalone Fishery is one of the only remaining sustainable abalone stocks on the door step of a capital city in the world. The fishery’s location provides significant commercial and recreational advantages over other Roe’s abalone fisheries in Western Australia, often presenting significant management challenges.

In 2011, a marine heatwave caused significant mortality in the fishery resulting in record low spawning biomass and recruitment. This led to the development of and implementation of additional performance indicators and harvest control rules to recover the fishery based around a total allowable catch.

Since 2012, five recreational fishers have died while recreational fishing for abalone in WA. This led to the need to change management arrangements to improve fisher safety.

This presentation outlines the key challenges faced in both recovering the stock and improving fisher safety and the conciliations required to find the appropriate medium.