The Portland community relies on recreational fishing to draw in tourists from across Australia to our wonderful town. We are also passionate about protecting our marine ecosystem and supporting the Great Whale Migration that we are lucky to witness.

Since 1994, our community, the local recreational and commercial fishers have been proudly maintaining a voluntary agreement to ensure commercial netters don’t impact local populations of our beautiful species - King George Whiting and Snapper have historically taken nearly a decade to recover from the localised depletion effects of commercial netting.

But now, the community is observing a commercial operator circumvent the agreement and is netting in important recreational fishing areas. It’s time for the government to step in and play an active role. We are calling on Victorian Planning Minister for Outdoor Recreation, Sonya Kilkenny to:

1. Extend Regulation 144 (temporal prohibition on commercial netting) in Portland Bay to      365 days a year, as an immediate step.

2. Amend the Fisheries Regulations 2019 to prohibit all forms of commercial netting in          Portland Bay in State Waters along the coast from Lawrence Rocks to the Fitzroy              River mouth.

The broader local community is concerned that commercial fishing operations in the nearshore waters of Portland Bay will have negative impacts on the endangered Southern Right Whale migration and calving. Portland Bay has been identified as an emerging aggregation area - we need urgent and long-term protections. We are afraid of whales being caught in the 2m long nets.

The Portland Bay area in southwest Victoria is an important year-round, all weather recreational boat fishery for key recreationally important fish species such as King George whiting, Snapper, Gummy and School shark, Sand flathead, Yellowtail kingfish, Garfish, Squid, Australian salmon and Southern bluefin tuna.  

Recreational game fishing in Portland has both a national and international reputation due to the proximity of the town to a world class Southern bluefin tuna fishery and Yellowtail kingfish are now seasonally abundant in the Portland Bay area creating accessible and highly valued sportfishing opportunities.

The regional community, local businesses, Local and State Governments have invested an enormous amount of money to promote the regional recreational fishery and to cater for local and visiting recreational fishers. The reputation of Portland as a world class, small boat recreational fishery and the subsequent tourism benefits are now under threat.

The commercial netting, in association with an absence of catch limits on recreationally important fish species, has the potential to impact our local recreational fishing opportunities, tourism, marine ecosystem and whale migration in a negative way.

Please sign and share this petition to urge the Planning Minister for Outdoor Recreation to intervene.


After signing the petition, consider taking the next step to email the Minister using this template.