Evaluate CKMR for Snapper

Project commences July 2024

Close-kin mark-recapture (CKMR) involves estimating the size of a spawning population based on the number of closely related individuals in a sample, such as parent-offspring pairs or half-sibling pairs. For example, given a random sample of fish from a population:

• more closely related pairs would be expected in a smaller population
• less related pairs are expected in a larger population.

CKMR can be used to estimate abundance, natural mortality, and fecundity with high precision, and is independent of fishery statistics. It is a reasonably new fishery assessment tool which is increasingly popular and has been successfully applied to commercial species including Southern Bluefin Tuna and School Shark.

This project will undertake a scoping study, led by the CSIRO's world leaders in the field, to evaluate the logistical and economic feasibility of CKMR as a method to estimate the biomass of Snapper.