Farewell "Dr Fish", a Champion of Pacific Fisheries

---

On 23/09/2022, internationally recognised fisheries scientist, Doctor Antony (Tony) David Lewis, affectionately known as “Dr Fish”, died at Wesley Hospital, Brisbane, Australia after a brief illness. At the time of his death, Tony was 74 years old. 

In the early 1970s, working for Dr Bob Kearney with fellow fisheries research officer Barney Smith of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources (DFMR), Tony was involved in the initial research and survey work of PNG’s resources of skipjack tuna and baitfish species, onboard the Fisheries Research Vessel “Tagula”.[1] Tony personally conducted aerial surveys of surface-schooling tunas in the Bismarck Sea, recording the location and size of tuna and baitfish schools from single-engine aircraft flying from Madang on PNG’s north coast. [2] PNG’s National Fisheries Authority (NFA) recently estimated that the potential value of PNG’s tuna fisheries industry is USD600 million per year. 

From 1983 to 1987, Tony was Fiji’s Chief Fisheries Officer, fostering the career development of Fijian fisheries officers and promoting the sustainable harvesting of Fiji’s marine resources. During the 1987 coup d’état in Fiji, Tony was briefly detained and then deported to Australia for resisting the use of Fiji Fisheries Division vessels by the Fiji armed forces, to illegally harvest and transport marine resources, including endangered giant clams. 

In his capacity as the Chief Fisheries Scientist, Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP) at the South Pacific Commission (SPC), Noumea, New Caledonia from 1988 to 2002, Tony was a major contributor to several tuna tagging programmes that provided critical data for assessing the status of several tuna species in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). Tony was personally involved in similar tuna tagging programmes in the Philippines, Vietnam and PNG. The OFP has recently estimated the value of the landed catch in the WCPO tuna fishery at USD4-5 billion per year. 

A 1989 PNG Fisheries Sector Review funded by the United Nations Development Programme included a recommendation for the replacement of the DFMR by the NFA. Tony was appointed as the inaugural NFA Managing Director in 1995, where he worked closely with the then Minister for Fisheries, the late Sir Mekere Morauta. 

Raised in the riverside Brisbane suburb of Indooroopilly, Tony often spent his weekends searching for aquatic species in the creeks near his home. At an early age he told a school friend that he intended becoming an ichthyologist, a goal that was realized in 1981 when he was awarded a PhD from the Australian National University (ANU) based on his thesis entitled, “Population Genetics, Ecology and Systematics of Indo-Australian Scombrid Fishes, with Particular Reference to Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis). In 1983, a previously unrecognised species of tropical baitfish, Lewis’ round herring (Spratelloides lewisi), was named in his honour. 

From 2014 to 2021, Tony was director of the International Pole and Line Foundation, an organisation dedicated to empowering sustainable one-by-one fisheries which use pole-and-line, handline and troll fishing methods. A keen amateur fisherman for most of his adult life, Tony was happiest in his later years casting a line into the Pacific Ocean off Pottsville Beach, New South Wales, just south of Queensland's Gold Coast. A celebration of Tony’s life was held at the Kurrawa Surf Club, Gold Coast on 27/11/2022 attended by his family, friends and ex-colleagues. Tony is survived by his son, Arnaud, who is also an avid amateur fisherman. 

[1] Kearney, R.E., Lewis, A.D and Smith, B.R. 1972. Cruise Report Tagula 71-1. Survey of skipjack tuna and bait resources in Papua New Guinea waters. Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, Research Bulletin 8. 145 p. P.70. 

[2] Kearney, R.E., Lewis, A.D and Smith, B.R. 1973. Interim report of an aerial survey of surface-schooling tunas in waters adjacent to Papua New Guinea. Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, Research Bulletin 10. 76 p. P.322.