Abstract
Contraction of the banana prawn fishery of Albatross Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, is examined. Albatross Bay banana prawn fishery is contracting steadily towards the stable geographic centre of the fishing grounds. Analyses suggest that the decline of banana prawn catches in Albatross Bay is an extension of a trend that began in the early 1970s and note that the banana prawn stock of Albatross Bay meets all the criteria specified for a penaeid stock likely to be vulnerable to recruitment-overfishing. Similar, though less pronounced, spatial contractions are also displayed in other banana prawn stocks in the Northern Prawn Fishery. These findings raise the possibility that similar if less advanced overfishing is occurring in other stocks of banana prawns in northern Australia.
