I don't like your chances of stoping them from netting the bay.

In the sixties there were 4 netters and two boats using setlines from Bunbury alone and if memory serves me about another 5 from Bussellton through to Eagle bay that used to set anywhere up to 2000 metres or as much as they could pull by hand and now there are Nick and Brian both Bunbury based who have been in the industry since they were kids, some 45 odd years. During the winter months Jimmy will return from Windy harbour and be based at Quindalup while Cooky and Bindy remain down south at Augusta. There catch records will show that they have remained stable for years but with the added pressure coming from the ever growing number of rec fishers this has forced closures to them and the wetliners as well so that everyone is more or less guaranteed a feed.

Now for the big question,, where would those who love to have, or forced by dietary constraints , get to have a feed of locally caught fish, be it shark, dhuie, snapper etc without the pros being forced out of the industry? 

You know what crap you get in a fish shop if you don't ask and pay top dollar for, otherwise its imported garbage that has been grown in a sewerage system in Vietnam that you wouldn't eat and expect non fishers to eat.

Maybe provide some reference/evidence?

"records reflect... decrease in numbers of fish has been significant"

How many gillnetters operate in Geo Bay?

If you are approaching this from an enviromental perspective, the Abel Tasman was going to work within the already established quota in a more efficient manner with more by-catch friendly methods than local commercial fisheries. So wonderful success..? Depends on which side of the fence you sit, economic or environmental.

I think you'll find docmattskin that there will be special  purpose zones within Geo. Bay.that prevent commercial fishing as part of the Federal Governments  MPA's. plan. The unfortuate part is there will be no take zones as well that affect us rec-fishers.

   ANSWERS

catch.fish   .   to my knowledge nearly all dhufish are sold in WA, not much sense exporting a very valuable fish to a market that doesn't evn know or has heard of it.  The bulk of it goes to Catalano seafoods, Sealanes,, Kailis seafoods and to a heap of other distributors plus the seafood markets held every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Canning Vale.

Versus-              there are I think 5 boats that work the S West area from near Preston Beach round to Gardiner river east of Windy harbour, two of these boats travel the whole zone while of the other, ,one fishes from Hamelin bay, one from Augusta ant he other does Wndy Harbour in Summer and Geographw bay area in winter.

The two that travel are home based in Bunbury  but regularly travel to cover the whole zone.

All the skipper / owners have been in the industry more than 30 years and know where and when to move.

So gillnetting is probably not raping Geographe Bay of its fish stock? But thats all commercial fishermen do, isn't it?

One interesting point, if the pros are hated that much how come I have been offered big dollars for my fishing spots that range from off Preston beach right down past Windy harbour. There are literally thousands of them and range from several hundred metres offshore to 40 odd miles out.

Its not alright for the pros to fish but to get their research and spots and not do your own hard yards seems unfair I think, like the pot calling the kettle black!!!

Some I have given to people I trust who won't flog them to death or hand them over to all their mates for them to have a shot at, the rest stay locked away and will stay that way.

In my opinion Gillnetting should be banned all over the world,nets are an indiscrimanate way of catching fish and yes they do have an effect on the fishery, i have had a few spots completely wiped out after the pros have been through,have even had them turn up while we were fishing a spot and drop there net.Dont get me wrong we need a commercial fishery so those non fishers can get a feed, why cant the pros use handlines the quality would be better,you wouldnt be pulling fish out full of sea lice you could send undersize fish back insead of throwing them dead back into the ocean.I could go on and on ,i just feel that nets of any kind are a bad thing.

Just for the record, i was being sarcastic... I thought i was being obvious about it.

saying "thats all they do, isn't it?" was me having a dig at what seems to be a fair proportion of rec fishers' opinions. In saying that, this post in particular seems to have brought out the more sensible/rational heads on this site, which is good to see.

My old man was a pro fisherman for many years, and a decade or more of that was as a gillnetter based out of freo.

From speaking to my brothers old boss, a pro shark netter that operates nets in winter and lines in summer out of eagle bay, since the metro area was closed to pro fishing it basically shifted the same fishing effort down south. He told me that there is definitly more fish being pulled from the geo bay to windy harbour region now than before the metro ban. He said he personnally doesnt net the bay and will only seldom wet line it. Most his stuff is down off Yallingup to Gracetown. He used to do Windy Harbour but i think he doesnt do it anymore. His brother also a pro fisherman down there does the same on his boat. And both of them seem to have a very big dislike for the Bunbury based operaters, namely one with a mediterranean surname which has had a fair few run ins and court appearances with fisheries over the last few decades. But thats only their opinions.

Geo Bay was supposed to become part of the pro closure with the metro closure, my brothers old boss told me he would give me all his Geo Bay spots. But at the final hour it was cut out and so i didnt get his spots. Sob sob hahahahahaha.

 Quite a lot being learned through all the discussion here; althought I do not have at hand official ( and trustworthy) stats that confirm the decline in fish stock I have read it on several accassions in various media and also anecdotally many fishos I have spoken to who have fished geo bay for several decades have absolutely no hesitation in stating that fish are harder to find and fewer in number.

It may boe worth considering the reference period when people give comment on their impression of change in fish stocks in the bay; ie does their personal experience span 5 years or 5 decades?   The baseline reference is obviously crucial to one's impression of the change ( or not) in geo bay fish stocks.

However, I must agree with Willo that gillnetting is effective for the pros as they get the maximum catch using that method of netting - but it is indiscriminate and can decimate entire populations of fish and damage coral / habitat.

Laws of demand and supply ( anybody want to argue that they don't work?) would dictate that if fewer fish were caught by the pros then a higher price would be asked per kilo caught and so the returns should remain the same but become better from the perspective of money in for time and effort out.  Of course there is a price that the market will dictate to be the maximum reasonable price that a buyer will pay for a kilo but the point is - perhaps thatprice should be sought by the pros?

Mate, every man should work and earn an honest dollar ( the bloke who  can work doesn't bother to work doesn't deserve to eat IMHO) but environmental responsibility is appreciated!  Kudos for the pros who do it responsibly, as for the others - may their boats hit a mine.....

Maybe most of the pros down here try and do the right thing but not all of them. I have seen nets set on dhuy spawning grounds. I dont think thats conservative fishing. When it comes to pro fishing I wouldn't believe anything you read or hear. I have heard all sorts of rumors down here.

the thing that really gets me in this sort of discussion is some of the guys here, and it seems mostly to be the ones who have never been involved in a commercial fishery, just take it as gospel that its rape and pillage to the last fish.

If you read above, I cant see any ex-commercial sayin thats the case and above you will see positive comments from some of the most respected Fishwrecked members such as Buz and Carnarvonite.

But these are disregarded in the search for a scapegoat

I heard that it was actually a sharknetter and not George Bush who knocked the twin towers down.....

 this is all very interesting reading. 

i have in the past fished pro by hand line and its hard work for the rewards but you still get the fish you dont want. imo it doesnt matter weather it be netting or fishing with a line there are always certain risks but to the blokes that rely on the netting for a living are going to do their best to preserve the areas they fish so they have fish for the future. 

It would be the fly by nighters that do more damage to stocks not the long term fisho's. 

however i believe the regulations that the netters are under are quite strict to avoid the cleaning out of fish in the area. 

its good to see this thread has been kept civil so more can actually read the pro's and con's without the bickering and bullshit.

And to throw my 2 cents worth in, i believe the weekend warrior's are the ones doiung more damage to dhuie stocks than the pro's. just look at the numbers of boats that hit the water over a weekend and if they caught 1 dhuie each every weekend the numbers will certainly suffer

whilewe definitly need a commercial fleet to catch fish for the local market , it needs to to one that is sustainable over a century or so to prove it viability IMO

 there has been a big increase in effort and catch has followed that increasing  effort over the last decade or so ,

if your in any doubt check out the state of the fisheries reports from say 1992 thought to 2010 , or so ...it will clearly show the increase in demersal gill net catch ,

in the main guys like pete warrilow and willie robbb or his brother jimie are to be commended for their good common sense in how they fish in amongst the local recs  it is well known locally who the guys are that cause the majority of the issues in the gill net fleet and it has been ongoing for years , as stated , they do target finfish , and they do run in and then within 100 metres of your drift over hard botom start to run net, this bs about we cant navigate as we are setting net is a smoke screen , that appears when they are back on shore , i know iv had it done to me several times over the years off the capes

you need to remember since gill netting was banned in the metro , the effort was pushed further south ,or north  it wasnt effort that   was removed from the water , in other words these guys fished harder in asmaller area, then they moved down to places like windy and further south , working this ground much more   right into winter in some cases , driving the locals mad with the amount of effort they where putting in especially on known spawning grounds

their  catch rate in tonnage increased so much that fisheries reccomended  TAC for their fishery was smashed several years in a row by large amounts , this TAC is the sustainable amount of fish that can be harvested as reccomended by fisheries ..so where they stopped ???  nop the TAC was increased ...anyone remember the demersal resource sharing meeting of afew years ago , when recs where going to allocated 30% and commercial the rest ??  they worked at smashing their catch stats to skew the previous records

anyone ever wonder why demersal gill netters have no records of returned undesize snapper ?? or dhufish ??or queenies ??  or mulloway etc etc ???  cause they dont return anything alive usually from ademersal gill net size or not ..recs return huge amounts of undersize fin fish ..

you wont find any accurate figures on what they catch other than raw tonnages of fish ..or shark , they are not required to record how many dhufish or snapper etc, as individual species ,

if you where getting paid $20-22kg  whole dhuifish , finfish , or $10-12 for shark per kg , which species would you be targetting hey ??  at the end of the day they are abusiness that knows there on limited time .how long who knows , but if you cant sellyour licence , you will be asking the gov    for compensation for it , when they say you cantuse it any more ...the more you have caught historically over a decade or so the more compensation you will get paid out when /if it happens ,,

there is abetter way to catch fish commercially than demersal gill net it kills everything that swims into it , it is what its designed to do , fish dont have reverse gear, they just swim into it , and continue to push harder forward into it until they drown , big small or undersize it doesnt matter too much , drop lines or other hook methods could be used

any one who believes this method   of fishing  to be sustainable over the long term is    trusting alot to a DOF that is well under funded and resourced to be able to keep up with all their areas to manage to actually know , whats going on out there

that l;eavesa few commercial guys with avested interest in theri busines to advise how to manage it ....is that abad thing , ??well you decide if so

case in point rock lobster , marine steward ship granted , world first , then itcollapses , all commercials and recs take ahit , now it is still down and the DOF dont know why etc, will it recover , ??yes maybe ??when ?? we arnt sure ??  i it climate change ??well, it could be ??  they dont know ??  seriuosly !!

food for thought gentlemen

hezzy

i should again point out we do need acommercial fishery , just not a gill net one imho

hezzy

Well said Hezzy !!!!

buz ...

couple of points of interest ,

tell me the last time you saw dhufish in any shop that was trayed up side by side and marked as line caught and net caught individually ??  ill bet you cant ?? 

how often do you eve see dhufish in any fish and chip shop here ??  not often and if you can it is all being sold as line caught ..

reason is , while you and i who have some experience of what finfish caught by both methods might look like when whole , like the heads on those augusta groper last year , once aline caught fish and a net caught fish are filleted and packed , the average joe will struggle to tell the difference

retailers know this and they sell/market it accordingly . iv never had anyone offer me net caught dhufish fillets,and iv worked in hospitality for over 33 years its all LINE CAUGHT ?when sold at curent prices of $48-$63 kg fillets

 i worked for a line catching wet liner for a time , filleted all his fish and packed em , sold em , even sweep get good money if filleted and marketed correctly

some of the  operaters are currently running short set times for their nets, this is designed to work the net harder over a single 24 hour TAC day , once upon atime you set it left it for 20-24 hours , came back and hauled it , now they set it , haul it 6-8 hours later, then reset it again , effectivley getting to cover more ground in a 24hour day and catch more fish , &  the fish you catch dont have the lice issues , etc,not all are doing this just a  couple 

im pretty sure if you investigate you will find demersal gillnetting was first introduced around here after world war 2 , when some of the old timers, had the good ides to start using camoflage net to take salmon and demersal species ,small sets of it , from small 18-21 foot boats,  it progressed into the early 80s with boats getting bigger and winch drums being used etc, length of net getting much longer etc, this came about as the commercials realised how efficient a killing method it was , and it was virtually left pretty much unregulated by DOF for along time ,

before demersal gill net was introduced , all finfish where caught by hook predomintly , the people of wa never went without fish &chips or fresh fish  and they wont into the future if it is banned eventually

there was joint meeting of stakeholders, back in dec 2009 which signed off on a study to be done on the drop out rate from demersal gill net, we still are waiting for the study & results ? 

in the meantime talk to rec boaties from windy harbour to bunbury , ask em how many queenies are they catching now ?? how many harlequin etc ?  all these small finfish are being taken and sold at high prices in retail outlets, anywhere from $28 -$48 kg , depending on the shop , and it isnt all line caught ...that is mythical bs  

anyone who argues that by banning demersal gill net we will increase our imports of foreign fish is just being ignorant  to the fact that even with a fully commercial gill &haul net fleet , we are still increasing our imports of fish every year, how much basa are you being sold in fish & chips shops ?  the imports will continue to rise as long as the demand from a growing  population asks for it , same as importing white goods etc ,

time will prove correct that this method of fishing is bad for the biomass it indiscriminatly kills ,

historically DOF  is very slow to act on changing management tools in these fisheries , its offshore and out of sight , hard to regulate and control , catch stats are not accurrate enough to gauge what species are being targetted over a decade 

hezzy

The catch returns are monitored regularly with fisheries officers and researchbods coming out , with me at least I'd say would have been once or twice a month, and you would never know when they would be waiting for you to unload then cross check what was on the return to what you actually caught.

Not 100% sure now but the mesh had to be a certain diametre and a minimum of 7inches to 7- 1/2 inches to try to ensure that a certain size shark was caught If we were targetting scale fish one would have used as bigger mest as possible yet all my gear was 7-1/8 and no bigger.

We would pull gear, travel then wetline until mid afternoon the set, off home to unload and back on the gear at first light next day. Though some do two sets per day it is usually one boat that has the storage capacity and is big enough to stay out overnight because of the time to travel in and unload which is usually every second or third day depending on where he is fishing at the time.

john ,

monitering does happen , but it doesnt really reflect what is happening to all the small finfish , the smaller mesh is perfect to tangle up any finfish that has a smaller narrower head , like queenies or harlequin, etc,

demersal gill net catches all sizes , of all species, big groper small groper, dhufish , even crays get tangled in it , it is what it is desigend to do , there is pretty much no selection on what it will catch or kill, 

drop out rates of bigger fish is really unknown , setting in 30 -100 metres it is unknown what larger fish or what fish at all drop out once the drum begins to put the ent under tension a sit is pulled off the bottom of the ocean and they hang in the mid depths in atight net that is slowly hauled back onto the drum , the boat rolls , lifts , pitches , effectilly shaking how mant fish out of a net ??  well for all the moniterign they dont know , they will tell you hardly any ....but fact is they dont know

and again ,pretty much  no undersize fish are released from a gill net , there might be the odd one , but no stats to quantify how much they kill , no division of species that they take , they will tell you there is no bycatch ......totally correct , because they are licenced to take everything &don need to record finfish seperate to sharks , so forall intents and purposes the records of catch taken are believed to be mainly of shark .......cause the operators  are left to keep their own records , and are not legislated to differentiate between species caught !!

hard to spot any trends if you cant see the stats on whats being taken other than a raw tonnage figure and get told its shark

id love to see some of these good guys left in the fishing industry  wetlining by hand or drop line , cull afew of the rogues and stop demersal gill net asap

hezzy

 This has been an illuminating thread and I must thank particularly Hezzy, Carnarvonite and Buz for the knowledge shared.  Clearly there is some variance in opinion on the sustainability of the pro fishing methods in the southwest but what seems to be clear is that gillnetting is the least sustainable method and I do see a case for motivating for it to be banned forever ( i.e until the present generation of fishos die or get demented and then the youngun's won't be any the wiser - like the GFC).

I think the point that rec fishos do return a larger portion of their catch alive is a poignant one.  Unlike gillnetting.

Hezzy, couldn't agree more when you say " id love to see some of these good guys left in the fishing industry  wetlining by hand or drop line , cull afew of the rogues and stop demersal gill net asap"

Any suggestions as to how we can have pressure put on the rogues to stop them fishing?

This has been a fascinating and enjoyable read. 

banning demersal gill netting may or may not put more pressure on finfish like big dhufish i personally thing it could be easily addressed as below

 if the current operaters where swapped over to drop or long line fishing  methods  IF IT WAS TO HAPPEN , and thats a big if , at least if proper records distinguishing individual species caught where recorded mandatorily , it would be possible to actually track each operaters and cross reference it with VMS information , collate the whole fisherys catch statistics for each year accuratly ,

 then it  could be  managed , if the trend in catch was to start going  upwards ,  re work the tools used to manage each operaters TAC, [TOTAL ALLOWABLE CATCH ]

if only afew operaters where gearing up and increasing then individually back them off , like a quota system each year, restrict their days or vessel size, hook numbers etc,

currently we dont know how many finfish of any species or size drop out or are killed by secondary skin /scale infection after coming into contact with a demersal gill net , it isnt the best way to manage a fishery ,

any thinking person can see it can be done better and should be done better

it isnt wise to leave a self interest group to not keep adequate records for audit purposes that will not give you a clear picture of how the biomass is trending one way or the other imho  

hezzy

Hezzy,

How do you feel about the rec fishers in the leschenault estuary netting? I know something needs to be done. My catches have dropped off from 10 mullet to now 2 or 3 mullet. I fish the friday only and we can see the difference. Seem to be more on the water and a few bad apples abusing the rules and netting when the feel like and taking more then the bag limit.

Now the 10 i get after netting. 5 feed the family and the others for bait. I have a family of 6. I used to go out craying and the mullet nad scraps would go in the pots.

Now due to the low catches and changes to my roster i am likey to get out there once a month.

Dave

Just curious as to whether there are any Recfishwest member swho read this forum? 

Im a RFW member?

howard ...

if it is rubbish , then riddle me this old mate ..

see if you can find the total catch of the following specis by demersal gill net in the west coast region

queen snapper

harlequin

fox fish

there is no individual catch stat i can find for these species in the state of the fisheries report 2010 or the demersal gill net and longline catch   compilation    stats..and iv looked ,

DOF ,a there are figures for key species that are the compilation of commercial line caught & gillnet , but not individual amounts ,from gill net

hezzy

I have been fishing Geographe bay as an recreational fisherman for 30 years and have not seen a significant decrease in demersal fish stocks, 20 years ago going out dhuie fishing you could not get heaps of fish all the time some trips maybe 3-6 dhu if your lucky, most of the time 1 or 3 same as now thats fishing. Maybe people need something to blame when they cant catch fish, I have seen the decline in the tuna and bonito stocks but they roam the oceans to breed and could be somewhere else.

john [carnarvonite ]

thanks for the reply , 

as i didnt want to make this a them an us type thread, just to point out a few of the things that could be improved or altered and how it is imo

the 190 mm i think used mainly now is it seems right on the money for many other species , john did you record all the differnt species you caught ?? or asimple scale fish and sharks type record ?  was it mandatory or your own idea ? 

 howard ?? ?not easy if not impossible to find info about demersal gill net catch stats for ,

mulloway

salmon ,

large tailor

sambos

they do catch them ,

snapper , dhufish and groper ??  in the west coast bio region ??  how many ?how many are released being undersize etc , how many fall out of nets ,

see where and how they came iup with the info ?/ observers, or actual catch records verified by who ? which boats caught what ??  commercial confidentiality ??on catch stats ?

back in the late 70-80s i had an uncle in bunbury who had alarge 28 ft plank boat , as an amatuer fishermen [not recreational ] it was legal to use set line , which he did , he targetted mainly finfish , with his 270 odd hooks , as  crewie with him on trip he mainly caught shark , with some finfish mixed , in , and he set on lumps and hard bottom ,

just my experience with set line on what he caught  others may differ

hezzy

Norman Moore in a media release back on the 27 Sept. gave the seal of approval to the gillnet shark fisheries saying in poses no risk to our sustainable fish stocks.

Oh well if Norman Moore gives his seal of approval none of us have anything to worry about then.

Hezzy,can you answer me this. Correct me if i am wrong but when the Gillnetters were told they cant fish metro and then relocated down here in the south were they and did they reduce there numbers by buying back licences or were the whole lot of them just moved from north to south?

There was a meeting in Busselton a couple of years back when a local caused enough stink about commercial gill nets. He wanted all gill nets in Geographe bay banned. At this meeting he was politely told that he did not know what he was talking about as he did not have any evidence to back up his memory of what it was like back in the good old days, catch records, fishing effort, etc compared to what it is like now. DoF had all the information and it was decided that gill netting in Geographe Bay is sustainable and pose no threats to fish stocks. Recfish also supported this decision.  The same thing has also happened further down south at windy harbour if anyone remembers the petition that was going around at the time. It also went nowhere. The only thing the greenies can come up with was the sympathetic stuff like gill nets kill seals but because the seal numbers are increasing it is a poor reason for banning gill nets. 

willo , as best as i can discover the DOF offered a voluntary  buy back of licences or units back nov 2007 or early 2008 when the mtro was closed  it seesm from theri dats that there was a 35% reduction in units able to be fished across these licences ,  however id assume this is not how it looks at first glance , basically their was latent units , that some licences holders had , but they where notbeing used, these units where sold back to the dept , so even though in the main they where not being actually used , on paper it shows areduction of effort by 35%

smoke and mirrors  basically

i stand corrected on what they record , iv found some figures on the hard copy of the 2009-10 state of the fishereis report as below on finfish catches     for the area south of the metro         

                                                        2006                                         2007                                           2009

 dhufish   tons                                     24.8                                         24.2                                           21.4

samson fish                                      16.3                                           10.3                                           7.9

mulloway                                           14.6                                         10.7                                           4.9 

queen snapper                                   51.8                                          53.7                                           60.4

blue groper                                       39.7                                           42.5                                          55.

redfish                                             7.9                                             7.9                                            11.1

otherscale fish                                 29                                               20                                            16 

total scalefish                                240                                                227                                         220

no mention of salmon though ,   

make of the numbers what you will , does a small fall in numbers mean they catch less fish ie less effort , or less fish where available to be taken ??

according to the stats their effort per km of gillnet ours x 1000 for each year is as follows  2006-7   = 141.5    2007-8 = 175.5   2008-09 = 169.3    my thoughts are more effort to catch less fish  ...now why would that be ?? if effort was reduced supoposedly by the buy back in 2007 -2008 ?  or is it that less gear was worked harder, set more often and checked more often  in a 24 hour TAC day than ever before ?

i can say recfishwest have  in my experience and im sure will continue to ask to  have this method of fishing changed    ,, it may take time though     

question is this sustainable  if you take the min of say 6 operaters south of the mandurah , if their gear is  a minimum  licence to operate say 2000 metres or two kilometres of net , and it averages out it can be set a max of 10 days amonth ..it might be used more in some months , less in others , but on average it is 10 days  a month ... that is 6 licences x   2000 metrs of net x 10 days each month average x 12 months year =     120 kilometres of net being set per month south of mandurah or 1440 kilometres per year in the same area   ???

personally i dont beleive it is ...my figures above are a   calculated guess  , as it is difficult to get accurate info on each  licenced boat and gear it can use , some have more , some less it is an average guestimate

hezzy             

john ...yes iv cleaned up to 2 ton of salmon , by hand back in 1990 i think , the  year bob jones got his 80ton hit at bunkers on good friday , we saw them shoot the net from the top of rocky point , walked back , put a small school in at eagle bay and cleaned em on the ebach , sold them $3 each or 2 for $5 wrapped in paper , got rid of the lot in one arvo ,

heads went for cray bait to a local ,

and yes the seals are in bigger numbers each year at bunkers and southpoint , agree willo , gettign them on the beaches around bunners now as well more often especially south this last year or so

hezzy

john

your interested in the shark numbers, ?  i deliberatly didnt write it all out  as the discussion was about finfish mainly that they take ,

                                                      total for sharks   2006-7  =  1285 tons     2007-8  =  1510 tons ,              2008-9  =  1238 tons   no percentages given ,

     total fishing effort of gillnet hours x 1000    =            2006-7 = 141.5              2007-8 = 175.5                  2008-09 = 169.3     

    again it seems more effort in 2008-9 =lower tonage    compared to 2006s  lower effort but higher tonage               

im not going to break down all the shark numbers ,except to add that the report states the stock level of gummy shark is acceptable , dusky shark was depleted , sandbar shark is depleted , &whiskery shark is recovering   this was in 2009/10  

 if someone wants they can look it up themselves

interesting to note this whole fishery is only worth around $ 6 MILLION  as acommercial fishery ... 2008 figures   interesting figure if compensation was to be used in a buy out of the industry operaters

hezzy