Emerging billfish fishing grounds in northern Australia: fisheries description, movement patterns and hot-spots (stage 1)

1 To provide a description of the emerging recreational fishery for billfishes in northern Australia, including analyses of conventional tagging data, historical records of billfish larvae (1956−1981) to map spawning areas, and evaluate whether historical commercial catch data on billfishes is available from Taiwanese gillnet fisheries (1972-1986).
2 To evaluate the movement patterns and hot-spots of billfish habitat-use in emerging recreational fishing grounds of northern Australia using pop-off satellite archival tags.
3 To conduct a pilot study evaluating the feasibility of double-tagging billfishes with pop-off satellite archival tags and internally implanted acoustic tags for long-term monitoring of billfish residency and site fidelity on fishing grounds.
4 To collect fin-clip tissue samples from northern Australia to contribute to a project examining the genetic population structure of sailfish.
5 To engage recreational fishers in citizen science evaluation of billfish movements and raise awareness of recreational billfish fisheries in northern Australia