John Daysh,
You sound eerily like the Foxy of previous times by constantly referring to agenda complying "Data" by Uni created career guessers with an interest in continued funding.
Do you have any idea at all or whatsoever how far out "recreational" fishers nowadays roam ?
Since the road has been sealed into Portland Roads it's not uncommon to see 20+ boats on long weekends there & 20+ boats out of restoration Point plus a professional fishing charter. The whole extent of the Cape York Coast is being relentlessly assaulted from Karumba to Cooktown.
Apart from recreational fishing there's the professional fishing of Cray, prawn, Trout, Trepang, Trochus etc etc. Then there is the "traditional" fishing including the taking of turtle & dugong.
These activities did not impact much years ago but since the access of the area by better, far more efficient rigs things have taken a dive so to speak. No matter how much Fisheries police they can't check everywhere in the creeks where "recreational" fishers camp with portable freezers to be towed back south when loaded up.
If you have access to that data I'd appreciate it if you could provide at least some of it.

Individual, may as well give up trying to convince JD of pretty much anything that goes against the great "climate consensus" CO2 scam. He'll come up with the same old "peer reviewed" BS when we all know much of the time that equates to mates backing mates, like the kids play "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" - there is no consensus, there are many eminent scientists who know CO2 emissions are not the main driver of climate change, geologists know that the current historically low levels of CO2 are nothing compared with past levels 10 times higher, reefs still thrived, the records show that climate always changes at variable rates, what we are seeing now is nothing out of the ordinary and it won't kill the Great Barrier Reef.
The puny efforts of Bowen, Albanese and their acolytes pushing unreliable intermittent renewables are costing billions, destroying vast areas of natural forest, productive farmland, wildlife and marine habitat. "Just hit koalas on the back of the head" was advice given if installing wind or solar short-life projects which won't change the climate but will keep pushing up power prices and force our few remaining industries off shore to countries with sensible, affordable energy policies.
They should be careful what they wish for. While NASA confirms the current moderate levels of CO2 of about 420 parts per million are greening the planet and boosting crop yields, if they drop to below 200, most life on Earth would cease to exist.

Indyvidual,

Calling long-term monitoring “agenda-complying uni-funded guesswork” may earn a tinfoil hat, but it’s not an argument. AIMS and other research bodies track reef health in ways you don’t (e.g. standardised methods, multiple data points, and repeat observations.)

Your reports of crowds of boats and remote fishing setups are vivid, but still anecdotal.

The question isn’t whether more people fish Cape York, it’s whether that causes system-wide reef decline. That’s what long-term surveys are designed to assess. Have those surveys found a correlation between booming recreational activity and region-wide coral bleaching or species decline? If you’ve seen credible studies confirming this, please share them.

Your concerns are valid, but you’d need data across multiple years and sites to show that recreational or traditional fishing is significantly altering reef-wide health across 2,300 km. Until such evidence is presented, your observations remain compelling anecdotes, not proof.

Here are some links…

AIMS Data Catalogue
http://www.aims.gov.au/data
Central access point for all downloadable GBR datasets (coral, fish, bleaching, temperature, etc).

LTMP Overview & Methodology
http://www.aims.gov.au/research-topics/monitoring-and-discovery/monitoring-great-barrier-reef
Long-term coral and fish monitoring surveys.

Annual GBR Condition Report (2024–25)
http://www.aims.gov.au/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/gbr-condition-summary-2024-25
Summary of coral cover, bleaching, and reef condition across all regions.

Reef Reports Hub / Dashboard
http://www.aims.gov.au/research-topics/monitoring-and-discovery/monitoring-great-barrier-reef/reef-reports-hub
Interactive dashboard with coral, fish, bleaching, and temperature trends.

AIMS LTMP Fish Visual Census Data
http://researchdata.edu.au/aims-long-term-barrier-reef/677369
Survey dataset of fish abundance, biodiversity, and size from 70 reefs.

Impact of GBR Rezoning Study (No-take Zones)
http://www.aims.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-06/AIMSBH24185_Impact_GBR_Rezone_Anniversary.pdf
Shows how protected “no-take” zones improved coral trout biomass and reef resilience.

Mikko2,

You’ve basically recycled the entire denialist bingo card: “no consensus,” “CO2 is too low to matter,” “reefs thrived with higher CO2,” “peer review is mates rates,” and “renewables kill koalas.” It’s a lot of noise, but none of it answers the simple, measurable facts.

Let's clarify a few points:

- Every national science academy on Earth accepts that CO2 is the main driver of modern warming. That’s not “mates backing mates,” that’s independent institutions converging on the same evidence.

- Yes, CO2 was higher millions of years ago, when continents, oceans, and ecosystems were totally different. The point isn’t whether reefs ever lived under higher CO2, it’s that today’s reefs are bleaching and dying under the rapid pace of change documented since the 1980s.

- Volcanic pulses, solar wobbles, and El Ninos all come and go. CO2 accumulates. That’s why the long-term warming trend matches greenhouse gas rise, not “Hunga Tonga” or “the Earth’s core.”

- Renewables “killing koalas” is tabloid nonsense. The actual, documented cause of mass habitat loss for koalas is land clearing and climate-driven bushfires. Nice try flipping the script.

You can sneer about “fund-procuring guessers” all you like, but the alternative you’re offering is blog posts and gut feelings. If you want to argue the science is wrong, bring peer-reviewed studies that overturn the data. Otherwise, this isn’t contrarian thinking - it’s reheated denial.

Mikko2,
You're of course right. What John Daysh & funding chasing mates don't like to be reminded of is that the changes nature dishes out take hundreds if not thousands of years to regulate themselves. JD et al can't figure out why they don't see environmental changes starting & finishing within 15 years, the average duration of a Uni Student to learn how to apply for funding.
He describes my real-life observations as wild because he doesn't understand them. Imagine if he could understand & accept the reality ?

Nailed it again Indyvidual but he just keeps churning out the same hype and tries to downplay the actual huge environmental harm that "renewable energy" projects are responsible for.
Meanwhile the US Department of Energy has just released a report by five top scientists NOT dependent on government funding which downplays the whole "climate emergency" scenario and which as expected has upset the group-think consensus mob and their media backers:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-issues-report-evaluating-impact-greenhouse-gasses-us-climate-invites