A Bioeconomic Model for Management of Banana Prawns ('Penaeus merguiensis') in the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery

Abstract

This thesis describes the development of a bioeconomic model for estimation of the optimal level of exploitation for banana prawns ('Penaeus merguiensis') in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is part of the Northern Prawn Fishery in Australia. The model is used to identify optimal levels of effort and catch to achieve sustainable and profitable exploitation. The main contribution of this work is the combination of methods used to model the fishery, which differs from other prawn fisheries in several respects, including their life and migration cycle and their aggregating behaviour. A stage-population matrix is developed to represent population growth and recruitment. The model is calibrated based on 18 years of daily catch data from logbooks and evolutionary algorithms are used to estimate unobservable parameters and to optimise management of the fishery.