ABSTRACT
There are two eras of fish harvesting in colonial Victoria. The first years, from the early 1800s to the 1850s, were boom times, characterised by the overexploitation of a variety of species in Bass Strait, around Port Phillip Bay and in Westernport Bay for commercial gain. By comparison, the years between the 1860s and the 1890s were more controlled: the character of commercial fishing changed; the exploitation of the colonial fishery both for sport and for commerce became enmeshed in colonial politics; and the colonial government introduced and enforced a range of fishery regulations. This chapter considers the exploitation of the colonial fishery in Victoria between the 1860s and the early 1900s, a period when angling and commercial fishing became entangled with different aspects of colonial society and politics. Government fishing regulations, competing understandings of the fishery and the environment, the expansion of the colonial railway and changes in the structure of the fish trade meant that commercial fishing expanded in a volatile, yet seemingly ordered, context. At the same time, the growth in angling blurred the boundaries between political, scientific and environmental considerations that simmered in debates about the exploitation of Victoria’s inshore fisheries up to the early 1900s.
