A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Term	Meanings
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organisation (of the United Nations)
FAS	Fisheries Adjustment Scheme
FBL	Fishing Boat Licence
Fecundity	Number of eggs an animal produces each reproductive cycle; the potential reproductive capacity of an organism or population.
FHPA	Fish Habitat Protection Area
Fish [fishes; finfish; scalefish]	Literally, a vertebrate (animal with a backbone) that has gills and lives in water, but generally used more broadly to include any harvestable animal living in water [‘fishes' refers to more than one type of fish; ‘finfish' refers to sharks, some rays and bony fishes, and ‘scalefish' refers to fish bearing scales]. Under the Fish Resources Management Act 1994, fish means an aquatic organism of any species. It does not include aquatic mammals, reptiles, amphibians or birds.
Fish stock	Total population of fish in an area.
Fishery	A term used to describe the collective enterprise of taking fish, usually used in conjunction with reference to the species, gear or area involved, e.g. Shark Bay Snapper Managed Fishery.
Fishing boat licence	A fishing boat licence means a licence (granted under the regulations) authorising a person to use a boat for commercial fishing.
Fishing effort	Amount of fishing taking place, usually described in terms of gear type and frequency or period for which it is in use, e.g. ‘hook-sets', ‘trawl hours', searching hours'.
Fishing mortality	A mathematical expression of the rate of deaths of fish due to fishing. Fishing mortality is often expressed as a rate that indicates the percentage of the population caught in a year; e.g. a fishing mortality rate of 0.2 implies that approximately 20 per cent of the population will be removed in a year due to fishing.
Fishing unit	Usually a fishing unit means a single fishing boat, for example a rock lobster boat, but the term is also used to describe a group of boats which together make a fishing unit. For example, the combination of a mother or lead boat and dinghies used in an estuarine fishery is regarded as a single fishing unit. In some cases where a boat is not used, the fishing unit is the individual fisherman, e.g. in the Marine Aquarium Managed Fishery.
FLAMS	Fisheries Licensing and Management System
FRAB	Fisheries Research Advisory Body
FRDC	Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
FRDF	Fisheries Research and Development Fund
FRMA	Fish Resources Management Act 1994
FRMR	Fish Resources Management Regulations 1995
Fully exploited	An appraisal of the status of a stock which suggests that current catches are sustainable and close to optimum levels (the definition of which may vary between fisheries, e.g. catches are close to maximum sustainable yield). In a fully exploited fishery, increases in fishing effort above current levels may lead to overfishing.

Derived from: Department of Fisheries publications; Fishery Status Reports. Resource Assessments of Australian Commonwealth Fisheries. 1998. Bureau of Resource Sciences, Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Canberra ACT; and Henderson's Dictionary of Biological Terms, published by Longman Scientific and Technical Press, 1989 (10th edition).