fisheries – Page 3 – ANGFA Queensland

Novaq, world’s first fish-free prawn food from CSIRO

Apr 122014

Original story by Pip Courtney, ABC News

A team of CSIRO scientists has cracked the holy grail of aquaculture by developing the world’s first fish-free prawn food.

Prawns for sale, prawns have been found to grow up to 40 per cent faster on Novaq. Photo: Matt Brann

The royalties from worldwide licensing deals for the Novaq product will earn the CSIRO tens of millions of dollars.

“The research cost about $10 million. We are very confident that this will generate a return on investment back to Australian taxpayers of many, many times the initial investment,” CSIRO’s Dr Nigel Preston said.

There is intense global interest in Novaq because it solves one of the farmed prawn industry’s biggest problems – its reliance on wild fisheries as a core ingredient in prawn food.

But aquaculture has reached “peak fish”, where demand for wild harvested fish meal now outstrips supply.

Without a solution, soaring world demand cannot be met.

“It is absolutely a critical issue for the global aquaculture industry. There’s no more room to get more wild harvest fish, so we’ve got to find alternatives,” Dr Preston said.

This is really a game-changer. There’s nothing like this that I’ve seen in my career and I may see nothing like this again.
CSIRO scientist Dr Nigel Preston

“A justifiable criticism about aquaculture is the continuation of catching wild fish, grinding them up and feeding to farm fish.”

News of Novaq’s development has caused huge excitement around the world, as many thought a fish-free food was impossible.

“It’s the first really viable solution to not having to use wild harvest fish meal,” Dr Preston said.

Australia’s only producer of prawn food, Ridley, has the licence to make Novaq, and aims to have it on the market by the end of next year.

Industry set to grow with Novaq

Ridley’s Bob Harvey says the industry will be able to flourish when it is no longer reliant on fish caught in the wild.

Ridley is aiming to sell the product to the world’s biggest producer of prawns, Asia.

“There is a world shortage of prawns, there’s an insatiable demand in South-East Asia for them,” he said.

“Once you start getting into South-East Asia, you’re talking millions of tonnes.”

Mr Harvey says the opportunity is worth millions of dollars to the company.

“It’s a long journey now to start to commercialise this, but the prize is significant,” he said.

The Novaq formula is a closely guarded secret, but it is known that the product is based on microscopic marine organisms.

“They are so abundant one would have thought that the world would have paid more attention to them, but their misfortune is to be so small,” Dr Preston said.

Novaq in use at an aquaculture facility. The industry is expected to grow without its reliance on fish caught in the wild. Photo: Landline

“The eureka moment [was] that we should be able to use their abundance, and the fact they are a significant component of the natural diet of prawns at every stage of their life history.”

Marine microbes are at the bottom of the ocean food chain and a decade ago scientists knew little about them.

The CSIRO team’s first breakthrough was working out how to feed and then farm them.

“They are harvested when they are 40 days old. We then de-water the product. We drain it down and filter it and then we harvest the product as sludge or … a mud,” said CSIRO’s Dr Brett Glencross.

“That product is dried before it gets milled and then included in a prawn feed.”

Novaq speeds up prawn’s growth

Novaq has delivered a second breakthrough, with scientists discovering prawns grow up to 40 per cent faster on the fish-free food.

“If you think of that in terrestrial terms, it’s very rare to see,” Dr Preston said.

“If you’ve got a chicken growing 40 per cent faster you’d think something was wrong. It was a surprise.

“This is really a game-changer, there’s nothing like this that I’ve seen in my career, and I may see nothing like this again.”

With farmers able to get more tonnes of prawns per hectare of pond space with the same input costs, the new feed will have a huge impact on profits and productivity.

It’s going to make the animals grow better and bigger … it sounds like the magic cure.
Prawn farmer Matt West

“Farmers can either get their prawns to market 30 per cent faster or they could have a prawn that’s 30 per cent bigger,” Dr Preston said.

Novaq offered more surprises by proving more nutritious than traditional fish-based feeds. Prawns fed the new diet were healthier and more robust.

“There’s opportunities to start lifting carrying capacities in ponds and start to push more animals out, but the thing that excites us more is that growth potential,” said the manager of Australian Prawn Farms Matt West.

Australian Prawn Farms at Ilbilbie, south of Mackay, has 33 hectares of ponds, and hopes to triple production by digging more on adjacent caneland.

Its plans have been hampered by a lack of access to power and tough environmental rules, but Mr West hopes Novaq can deliver an increase in yields without the need to push ahead with the extra ponds.

“It’s going to make the animals grow better and bigger and stronger and more healthier … it sounds like the magic cure,” he said.

Novaq’s arrival is perfectly timed, as supermarkets and customers increasingly demand seafood that is certified as sustainable.

“We as an industry do want to be clean and green, we want to go down more of the sustainability path and this is just one of the little ventures that we can do … it has a sustainability tick,” Mr West said.

Fish next on the CSIRO’s agenda

Dr Preston hopes some of the millions of dollars the CSIRO earns from Novaq royalties will be spent finding the same solution for farmed fish. It is a much bigger market, but it is also more challenging.

“Because prawn feeds have about 25 per cent wild harvest fish meal in their formulation, with fish it’s 40 to 50 per cent, but we do have the germ of an idea as we had for Novaq 10 years ago,” he said.

CSIRO-developed Novaq is the world’s first fish-free prawn food. Photo: Landline

“We assume it’ll probably take 10 years but will be pleasantly surprised if it only takes five.”

Dr Preston says it is crucial the work is done, as the aquaculture industry cannot grow unless it finds an alternative to current feed containing wild caught fish.

“One in two fish that everybody eats around the world is farmed so if we’re going to continue to eat more fish, if we’re going to meet those demands for the world’s ever growing population, then it’s going to be farmed seafood,” he said.

“And if it’s going to be farmed seafood it absolutely needs to be sustainable.

“We need to double fish production in the next 50 years … so we need to come up with some innovation and I think providing Novaq for fish is probably the next step.’ Dr Glencross said.

Landline’s story on the Novaq breakthrough is on Landline on ABC1 on Sunday at noon.

Facial scrubs causing damage to environment

community, environment, fisheries, waterways/wetlands

Apr 062014

Original story by Neil McMahon, Brisbane Times

Vanity – and our vulnerability to the power of advertising – are changing consumer habits from breakfast to bedtime, and contributing to an almighty environmental mess. The culprit: microbeads.

In a lather: Minute plastic beads from toiletries are making their way into the marine environment.

These are minute bits of plastic that have been inserted into everyday products from facial creams to toothpaste, proclaimed in advertising as a healthy advance but which are turbo-charging an already dire problem – the global pollution of oceans, lakes and rivers by cast-off plastic.

What makes microbeads especially threatening is that they enter the environment – washed down our bathroom drains – already broken down into all-but invisible microplastics, defined as 0.1 to 0.5 millimetres in size.

Tiny and buoyant, and not filtered by sewerage systems, they are swiftly ingestible by marine life, making them more immediately dangerous than a discarded drink bottle. They are likely to have entered the food chain – so while you wouldn’t eat your facial scrub from the jar, you might be consuming it if you eat fish.

And for what benefit to ourselves – to our skin?

Almost none. According to Associate Professor Greg Goodman, a fellow of the Australasian College of Dermatologists, our modern obsession with scrubbing our skin is, for most people, doing more harm than good.

“People are exfoliating everything,” he says. “But we’re not floorboards. We don’t need to be polishing and buffing and scrubbing. Most science dermatologists don’t like exfoliation because the barrier functions of the skin get exfoliated and that’s a negative thing for your skin. Exfoliating takes out the top layer that keeps your skin in good nick.”

The use of microbeads in cosmetics is recent – Dr Goodman says most patents date only to the middle of the last decade – but there is already a backlash against the harm they are doing. The 5 Gyres Institute in the US found such significant microbead pollution in the Great Lakes region last year that it launched a campaign to have them banned.

In Australia, there has been little study of the harm caused by microbeads. But Dr Scott Wilson, a coastal management expert from the Central Queensland University Gladstone, says harm is being done to marine life and potentially to humans.

“It’s an area we’re just touching on now, trying to find out what the potential harm is,” he says. “We know they’re being ingested – there’s a whole gamut of species that we now know have these microplastics in their guts, and some are being incorporated within the tissues as well … so there’s this trophic transfer of the plastics through the food chain. If you take it to its fullest [conclusion], if we’re consuming fish or other sea life there’s potentially a transfer. We need to find out what risks there are to humans as well as to the organisms.”

Dr Erik van Sebille, of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, says the impact of microbeads will be felt in heavily populated urban centres.

“We know from a food source point of view that the smaller the plastic, the more harm it does. My suspicion with something like microbeads is the harm is done right where our sewerage systems hit the ocean.”

Major cosmetics manufacturers say they will phase out the use of microbeads over the next three to five years. The Body Shop is leading the way, with a spokeswoman telling Fairfax Media its products would be microbead-free by the end of this year. For consumers, Dr Goodman says there is a quicker solution: use something natural – an oatmeal soap would do the job – or don’t exfoliate at all.

“We mix up the squeaky feel of skin as being something healthy and it’s really not – it’s actually impending dry, terrible skin,” he says. ”They’re not understanding what healthy skin is.”

Rainwater runoff brings fish on bite

community, fisheries, waterways/wetlands

Mar 302014

Original story by Matt Osley, Queensland Times

WITH all the rain about, many anglers think their fishing opportunities go down the drain. That is not the case and in some circumstances the fishing can actually improve.

PRIZE CATCH: Kyle Fletcher took out the mangrove jack competition last weekend at the Gold Coast with this cracker 59.5cm fish. It was caught on a surface lure.

The mouths of rivers are a great place to start.

Fresh water pushing down the rivers and meeting the salt water can create a dirty water line.

This dirty water line is a favourite attraction for large jewfish, flathead, estuary cod and threadfin salmon.

These fish can be targeted in a similar way to each other.

Local live bait is the best. However, if you can’t catch or net your own, try freshly defrosted pilchards, squid or large endeavour prawns.

Try to use little weight as you want the bait to move around a little in the current to help in the presentation.

A run-out tide is the best after a lot of rain as it concentrates the baitfish a little more.

Lures can also work and vertical presentations like Jackall Transams and heavily rigged paddle tails like the Norries Spoon tail or Keitech Fat Impact are great for this situation.

Simply drop the lure to the bottom and slowly work the lure back to the boat.

Allow plenty of pauses to keep the lure in the strike zone.

In the fresh, many of the dams and rivers actually fish much better after an influx of water.

As the rivers rise with the incoming water, the bass and other predatory fish make the most of this and begin to hunt in the shallows for stranded insects, frogs and other food items.

Small surface poppers can be great early in the day with shallow divers coming in when the surface strikes quieten down.

In these shallow waters, bass will often take baits of live worms or shrimp.

If you want to try your hand at luring, try the Megabass Dog-X and Type-X or the Luckycraft Sammy 65. These are great lures and replicate a host of different prey items.

Another great place to try would be Hinze or Maroon dams.

Both of these dams respond well to the rain, and fish particularly well early in the morning with surface lures the same as you would use in the rivers being the common theme.

Focus your attention around the edge of these dams as the fish will move into the shallows to take advantage of freshly flooded grasses and all the prey.

IPCC preview: deep trouble brewing in our oceans

community, environment, fisheries, government, research, waterways/wetlands

Mar 262014

By Ove Hoegh-Guldberg at The Conversation

Scientists are meeting this week in Yokohama, Japan, to finalise and approve the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group II – the part of the IPCC process that seeks consensus on the likely impacts of climate change, as well as how it might change the vulnerability of people and ecosystems, and how the world might seek to adapt to the changes.

Rousing the Kraken: climate change could make life in the ocean much harder. Image: Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy/Wikimedia Commons

The oceans are a new focus of this latest round of IPCC assessment, and while one cannot preempt the report to be delivered next week, there are likely to be some important ramifications for our ability to deal with the growing impacts from non-climate-related stresses such as overfishing, pollution, and habitat destruction, as well as ocean warming and acidification.

To put it simply, a failure to deal with our changing climate will make it far more difficult to deal with the many other threats already faced by our oceans.

If you’ll pardon the pun, the ocean is in deep trouble, and that trouble will only get deeper if we don’t deal decisively with the problem of climate change.

Ecosystems already under stress

I am deeply concerned about the state of the world’s oceans, as I believe we all should be. The argument is pretty simple. Human activities are increasingly affecting the oceans, which are the cornerstone of life on our planet. These impacts are causing the decline of many ecosystems and fisheries. As a result, the risks to people and communities are rapidly expanding.

Throw in ocean warming and acidification, and you have many scientists predicting the dangerous and unprecedented decline of ocean processes and ecosystems.

Not only is this decline tangible and measurable, but models (from simple to advanced) show future projections of sea temperature rising above the known tolerance of many organisms and ecosystems.

The pace of this change now has many world leaders concerned about the future of the world’s oceans and their dependent people and businesses. This is led to an increasing number of past and future conferences focusing on how we can tackle the scale and rate at which marine ecosystems and resources are deteriorating and changing.

This concern has led to commitments such as the Global Partnership for Oceans. In a dramatic 2012 speech, outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick positioned the partnership to galvanise resources and take real action on reversing the decline of the world’s oceans. Soon afterwards, the partnership – which involves more than 150 governments, companies, universities and non-government organisations – declared a set of objectives to meet by 2022, including to:

Halve the current rate of natural habitat loss, while increasing conservation areas to include 10% of coastal and marine areas;
Reduce pollution and litter to levels that do not harm ecosystems;
Increase global food fish production from both sustainable aquaculture and sustainable wild-caught fisheries.

This sounds like a tall order. However, under a stable climate, I have few doubts that we could come close to achieving these broad objectives. It might take some time, but I think we would get close.

Unfortunately though, we are not in a stable climate.

Climate poses an extra layer of threat

Over the past 50 years, increasing amounts of energy and carbon dioxide have been flooding into the ocean through the burning of fossil fuels and changes to land use. Initially, the ocean was fairly inert to these changes because of its large volume and thermal mass.

However, just like the eponymous monster in John Wyndham’s apocalyptic novel The Kraken Wakes, the ocean is now stirring and big changes are beginning to happen. Ocean temperatures and acidity are increasing in lockstep with average global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide content. Many of these changes are unprecedented in 65 million years.

While some changes, such as the extent of mixing of heat into the deep ocean, have been relatively unexpected, the energy content of the ocean has been increasing steadily. In reality, the widely proclaimed “hiatus” in surface warming simply represents heat being driven into the oceans.

Heat content of the ocean, atmosphere and land since 1960. Figure 1 Church et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. (2011)

The problem with climate change in the context of dealing with the growing threats from overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction is that the goalposts are constantly shifting. If we continue to push sea temperature upward by 0.1-0.2C per decade, we begin to shift species, and hence fisheries – some are already moving at up to 200 km per decade. Trying to manage a fishery or protect an ecosystem, when the best conditions for the organisms involved are moving polewards at such a rate, may well become impossible in many circumstances.

Future goals

This means that if the Global Partnership for Oceans is to meet its ambitious goals, we must deal decisively with the problem of emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and land-use change.

If we don’t, then with all due respect to the partnership’s efforts, we are set to waste billions of dollars trying to address problems that will only get swamped by a fast-changing climate.

As outlined in last September’s IPCC Working Group I Report, stabilising the climate will require world carbon dioxide emissions to be brought onto a trajectory far below what governments and companies are set to emit over the next 20 years if business is allowed to continue as usual.

A lack of such decisive action will indeed wake the Kraken – committing us to ocean, and indeed planetary, impacts that are likely to last for many thousands of years.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg receives funding from the Australian Research Council and carries out research on coral reefs and the impacts of climate change. He is affiliated with the University of Queensland, AIMS, Stanford University and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. He is a Coordinating Lead Author for the AR5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Mangrove poisoning could impact Moreton Bay fishing

community, fisheries, government, wildlife

Mar 202014

News release from Fisheries Queensland

The illegal destruction of mangroves on the foreshore at Lota on Brisbane’s southside is likely to have impacts on local fish and crab populations.

Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol district manager Brett Depper said recent reports of deliberate poisoning and cutting of mangroves at Lota were being investigated.

“Several mangroves on the seaward edge of this community have evidence of die back,” Mr Depper said.

“We are urging anyone with information to contact the Fishwatch hotline on 1800 017 116.”

Mr Depper said that this is not the first time this type of mangrove destruction has happened in the area.

“This is an ongoing problem and it is obvious that whoever is responsible for killing these plants has no respect for this vital community resource and no idea of the mangroves’ value to the local environment,” he said.

“If mangroves continue to be needlessly destroyed there will certainly be significant impacts on the precious resources of Moreton Bay.

“Any loss of mangroves like these will have a flow-on effect to the fish and crab populations they support.

“Healthy tidal fish habitats are not only important to the animals that live in or migrate through the bay, they also support important community activities such as fishing and help protect from erosion.”

Mr Depper said anyone caught destroying mangroves or marine plants will face heavy fines.

“Fines of up to $330,000 can be imposed for the destruction of marine plants,” he said.

“Marine plants including all mangroves, seagrass and saltmarsh species are protected by the Queensland Fisheries Act 1994 and prior approval is required for any works or activities that could disturb, destroy or damage them.

“This protection applies to all marine plants on private, leasehold and public lands and it doesn’t matter if these plants are deemed to be alive or dead.”

For more information on mangroves, visit www.fisheries.qld.gov.au or call 13 25 23. Follow Fisheries Queensland on Facebook and Twitter (@FisheriesQld).

Ecological fish farm makes prime time

Australian native freshwater species, community, fisheries, Interest

Mar 192014

Original story by Ben Chenoweth, the Wollondilly Advertiser

ANDREW Bodlovich’s kitchen may not “rule” but his barramundi and herb farm operation is certainly proving successful.

Aquaponic herb farmer’s insights: Andrew Bodlovich at his Cobbitty herb and barramundi farm. Photo: Jonathan Ng

The 50-year-old Cobbitty farmer was chosen — as one of 34 farmers who supply Coles supermarkets — to have a brief guest appearance on Channel Seven’s reality show My Kitchen Rules.

Mr Bodlovich said his inclusion in the show, due to air on March 24, was to give the contestants and viewers an insight of where the produce originated.

“I think it’s really important for people to see beyond the cooking challenge,” he said.

“It’s a cooking show but they also want to showcase where the food comes from.”

It will be the second time the local farmer has graced Australian television screens.

His first appearance was on the ABC’s New Inventors program, where he and a fellow inventor demonstrated their combined herb farming and barramundi technique.

Mr Bodlovich said the system was designed so both fauna and fish benefited from the other.

“It’s all inside a high-tech glasshouse,” he said. “The vegetables are on a conveyor belt and below are the fish in tanks. The fish produce the nutrients and it turns into plant food. The fish feed the plants [which] keep the water clean.”

Pine Rivers fish stocking group fears for future

Australian native freshwater species, community, fisheries, government, waterways/wetlands

Mar 192014

Original story by Genevieve Hayward, Pine Rivers Press

A north Brisbane fish stocking group says its financial future may at risk if boat permits are scrapped.

Pine Rivers Fish Management Association (PRFMA) says it will face a sharp drop in funding if a report due next month ends the scheme.

Barry Tucker, from the Pine Rivers Fish Management Association, about to release Australian bass in to Lake Samsonvale. Source: News Limited

Such a move would leave the association without the bulk of the $30,000 it needs each year to restock lakes Samsonvale and Kurwongbah.

“It (the review) could be the death of the Boating Access Scheme and see funds for stocking dry up,” said PRFMA treasurer Barry Tucker.

“The fish are very important for the environment of the lake. They control predator fish, they control excess weeds and water quality improves when a lake is well stocked with fish.”

Mr Tucker also said the quality of fishing may decline.

An Seqwater spokeswoman said a consistent permit scheme across all lakes was being considered as part of the recreational review of lakes Samsonvale and Kurwongbah.

It would also be unlikely for PRFMA to see any funds from a new permit scheme, said the spokeswoman.

Moreton Bay Regional Council has provided $7000 annually for fish stocking over the past four years and the association receives funding through the Stock Impoundment Permit Scheme (SIPS), which requires people to buy a permit to fish Lake Samsonvale, but funding from these alone will not be enough to cover costs.

“Seqwater say if the lakes are opened up there will be more people using the SIPs permit. That will offset the loss a little but we might not be able to maintain current stocking levels,” Mr Tucker said.

The association recently celebrated 21 years since their first meeting on March 11, 1993 and in that time has stocked lakes Samsonvale and Kurwongbah with more than two million native fish.

These are also integral to controlling numbers of destructive introduced species, mosquito populations and water quality.

The lakes require continuous restocking as the native Australian Bass and Golden Perch released cannot breed in an enclosed environment, needing brackish water and running, shallow water respectively to lay their eggs.

Heavy fines for anglers targeting native fish

Australian native freshwater species, community, fisheries, government, pest species, waterways/wetlands

Mar 192014

Original story at the Daily Liberal

FOUR men have been issued thousands of dollars in fines after pleading guilty to illegally targeting native inland species in the Macquarie River in 2012.

The four men, from Gunnedah, have each been fined $2500 in addition to $600 in court costs for using illegal fishing methods to target native inland species, including using excess hand-held lines, prohibited baits and possessing a number of prohibited fishing items.

The charges stem back to February 2012, where fisheries officers caught the men while conducting patrols of the Macquarie River near Warren.

Officers apprehended the men, aged 20 to 29, and seized 90 rigged handlines, 11 drift lines, a monofilament cast net, seven prohibited traps and 23 live carp.

Two of the men also pleaded guilty to not paying the recreational fishing fee.

Department of Primary Industries fisheries supervisor Jason Baldwin said the conviction sends a clear message about the use of illegal and excessive fishing gear, for those who choose to flout the law.

“It is against the law to set and leave hand lines unattended, fishers must be within 50 metres and within line of sight of their fishing lines,” Mr Baldwin said.

“Fishers must know the rules and pay the recreational fishing fee before you hit the water or pay the price.”

To report illegal fishing in New South Wales, visit your nearest fisheries office, report online at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/compliance/report-illegal-activity or call the Fishers Watch Phoneline in 1800 043 536.

To report unlawful fishing in Queensland, call the 24-hour Fishwatch hotline on 1800 017 116 (toll free within Queensland) or visit http://www.daff.qld.gov.au/fisheries/services/illegal-fishing-activities.

Why Australia’s northern rivers are so full of fish

Australian native freshwater species, fisheries, research, waterways/wetlands

Mar 182014

Original story at ABC Darwin

New research is revealing how North Australian rivers support more fish than would seem possible. Surgically implanted tracking devices are showing how barramundi make ends meet.

Northern Australia has big fish and lots of them…

Charles Darwin University’s Associate Professor David Crook, has perfected the art of surgically implanting fish with small radio tracking devices.

“You just make a little incision with a scalpel and pop the tag in and stitch it up, and the fish is back in the water in a minute or two,” he says.

In this way, 40 barramundi and 30 fork-tail catfish were equipped with radio transmitters. The electronic addition to the fish allowed scientists to keep track of their movements.

But it’s not about helping the fishing obsessed find their next catch; the researchers are trying to solve a much bigger riddle.

Associate Professor David Crook surgically implants a radio tracking device into a barramundi while research assistant Duncan Buckle records data.

Fish mystery

Australia’s tropical waterways are famous for being some of the best places in the world to go fishing. What looks like a small, muddy creek, can be teeming with fish. And up North, it’s not just tiddlers; barramundi and threadfin salmon regularly grow over a metre long, while river sharks and sawfish are even bigger.

When scientists took a look at our tropical rivers, the huge numbers of big fish just didn’t quite add up.

“It seems like there’s not enough energy just in the main channel to support the productivity of the fisheries that we have,” says Professor Crook.

Lurking somewhere in the South Alligator river is this magnificent 137cm Barramundi!

But as any fisherman will confirm, knowing what the fish get up to below the surface can be very hard to figure out. So Professor Crook turned to surgically implanted radio trackers to try and understand how rivers in the north can be home to such a wealth of fish.

Secret revealed

At first the trackers showed the barramundi weren’t doing very much at all; they didn’t move very far from where they were released. But with the first rains of the wet season, the barramundi were transformed.

“Pretty much immediately the fish moved straight out onto the floodplains within a day or two of the water coming up on the floodplain,” says Professor Crook.

The barramundi became highly active and researchers had to adjust their equipment to keep up.

“We have to use a helicopter to find the fish because they are moving around so much,” Professor Crook says.

The tracking devices showed that the wet season allowed barramundi and fork-tailed catfish to take advantage of a large part of the northern landscape. Professor Crook’s stand-out performer regularly led him between the river and the floodplain over the wet season.

“That fish has probably been making movements in the order of hundreds of kilometres over that period,” he says.

Feeding far and wide

What appears to be a small river or creek loaded with fish in the dry season, is really more of a holding pond for fish who make their best living far and wide in wet season flood waters.

“Without the connectivity between the estuary and the floodplain there’s no way our rivers could support as many barramundi and other fish as they do,” says Professor Crook.

The research has shown scientists that a barramundi is not just a product of the billabong or river where it may end up on the end of a fisherman’s line.

“At least 35 per cent of the energy in the flesh of a barramundi actually comes from the floodplains,” Professor Crook says.

The work proves what many have suspected; that wet season flooding drives the health and productivity of tropical rivers and estuaries. Professor Crook says the knowledge will help inform the future management of water in Northern Australia.

“That’s what we’re really trying to understand; what sort of processes do we need to keep in place to make sure we continue to have productive fisheries in the future?”

Fishers should forget fishing at Fitzroy River Barrage

community, fisheries, government, waterways/wetlands

Mar 172014

News release from Fisheries Qld

Fishers are spoiled for choice when it comes to great fishing spots around Rockhampton, but the Fitzroy River Barrage should not be one of them.

Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol district officer Gary Muhling said fishers need to avoid fishing in closed waters.

The Fitzroy River Barrage was constructed across the River to keep salt water out of the fresh.

“We have received an increased number of complaints about people fishing inside the closed waters at the Barrage recently,” Mr Muhling said.

“The Barrage is closed to all forms of fishing 400m downstream of the dam wall, and 400m upstream.

“There are also closed waters 200m upstream to 400m downstream of Eden Bann Weir, and 200m upstream to 200m downstream of Wattlebank Control Weir.

“There are signs in place advising fishers of the closed waters, and it is the responsibility of all fishers to know the rules before heading out.

“Fishing in closed waters is a serious offence which carries a $440 on-the-spot fine or a maximum penalty of $110,000, and your equipment could be seized.”

Mr Muhling said QBFP works together with the local council to monitor the area.

“Rockhampton Regional Council has installed signage, CCTV surveillance, controls remotely operated spotlights and a verbal warning system, and conducts regular patrols of the closed water areas.”

Mr Muhling said closed waters are in place to help preserve fish stocks in areas where they may be vulnerable to overfishing.

“The Barrage and weirs form a barrier, and fish tend to congregate there whilst waiting to use fish ladders to travel up or down stream,” he said.

Mr Muhling also expressed concern of fishers risking their safety to throw a line in at the Barrage.

“The area is slippery and the Barrage gates open automatically, making it a dangerous place to fish. There has also been a large crocodile sighted in the area. It’s just not worth the risk.”

If you suspect illegal fishing, whether seen in person or online, report it to the Fishwatch hotline on 1800 017 116. Any trespassing or damage to the Fitzroy River Barrage should be reported to the Council’s Customer Service Centre on 1300 22 55 77, or Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000. Don’t engage the person, as this can compromise an investigation.

For more information on closed waters, visit www.fisheries.qld.gov.au or call 13 25 23.

Follow Fisheries Queensland on Facebook and Twitter (@FisheriesQld).

Media contact: Jodana Anglesey, 3087 8601

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