An assessment of the sustainability of the Indigenous dugong fishery in Torres Strait 1997

The referenced report is presented in two sections.The first section reports on the results of a third survey of dugong distribution and abundance in Torres Strait conducted over four days in November 1996.The second section estimates the size of a sustainable dugong catch in Torres Strait using the Potential Biological Removal Method (PBR). The sustainability of the dugong fishery is then evaluated by comparing aerial survey estimates of the size of the dugong population in 1987, 1991 and 1996, and catch statistics from the Torres Strait Protected Zone (TSPZ) since 1991 in the context of current knowledge of dugong life history parameters.