[1] They are selective foragers which eat crustaceans such as chitons, limpets, barnacles,[citation needed] mollusks, crabs, and sea urchins.

Many other wrasses are protogynous hermaphrodites but this species is a secondary gonochorist, in which individual fish change sex before they reach sexual maturity.

Workers have, so far, been unable to find any individuals with gonads in transition from female to male but particular environmental or social conditions may still be involved in inducing sex change in at least a some of the fishes in a population.

[6] Off the coasts of Victoria and Tasmania this species is caught by commercial fishermen using traps and on hand-lines to be sold as live fish.

In Tasmanian waters and off eastern South Australia is a common bycatch in the lobster fishery, when caught it is frequently kept for use as bait.

[3] Notolabrus fucicola are easy to catch, because of their territorial nature and the aggressive competition with other fishes for food, and are caught from rocks, boats, and piers, There have been areas where they have undergone local population declines which have overfishing as their most likely cause but sedimentation and nutrient pollution may also affect the condition of their inshore reef habitat.