- Rec fishers are reporting higher rates of depredation
- Increased levels of depredation have been linked to recreational and commercial fishing activities
- This app was developed to help recreational fishers avoid depredation while out fishing
- Realtime feedback to the community
Depredation in recreational fishing is when a fish being caught or released by a fisher is eaten by a larger predator that was not an intended target. Recreational fishers are reporting an increasing number of instances where sharks have eaten fish being fought, and during or shortly after release. There is substantial research indicating that depredation is a learned behaviour (Mitchell et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2018). Depredation has also been strongly related to where and when people fish (e.g. season), and how (Ryan et al., 2019; MacNeil et al., 2009).