Commercial Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE)

Catch per unit effort (CPUE), or catch rate of Pale Octopus from the Tasmanian Octopus Fishery (TOF) has been standardised relative to a reference year (2004/05). Since November 2004, a 50-pot sampling programme has been conducted within the TOF, where fishers are required to collect all octopus caught in 50 randomly selected pots from a single line, representing 10% of a standard commercial line. Biological data have been collected from these samples, and CPUE from the sampling programme included in the presentation of overall fishery CPUE. Note: 50-pot sampling data were not provided for 2019/20.

Given that Pale Octopus are known to seek pots for breeding and shelter and are likely to be targeted at breeding aggregation sites, there is a notable risk of hyperstable CPUE, whereby CPUE remains high despite potentially significant declines in the population size. Therefore, CPUE is not a reliable proxy for abundance in this fishery.

Since Pale Octopus catch and effort under developmental permits have been consistently negligible, these data are not presented here.