PEST FISH SPREADS
I MENTIONED recently that tilapia, otherwise known as things with fins, rats with fins or more affectionately toads with fins, had infested the lower Burdekin River. This confirmed that tilapia ( like the one pictured) are now above and below the Burdekin Dam wall and inhabit the entire 732km length of the Burdekin River. Tilapia are a declared noxious pest and cannot be returned to the water dead or alive if caught on a line. And they can’t be removed from the area. Take a couple home to cook for dinner and you risk a $ 220,000 fine. The law says to leave them on the bank. Reader Paul Fry has eaten tilapia throughout Asia and says that being able to eat them might help reduce their dominance in our waterways. They are a popular eating fish in the US where around 460 million kilograms of farmed tilapia are consumed annually. They are voracious feeders and are wiping out our native fish. Most of the tilapia eaten in the US are farmed in freshwater, but this doesn’t stop the entrepreneurial and wildly creative farmers marketing them as “chicken of the sea”. There was a recent report of imported tilapia being sold in Australia as kariba bream. Calling the rats with fins bream, that’s low.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
NOTE to card sharps and snake eye specialists: keep rolling those dice and dealing those cards. Former Townsville MP Peter Lindsay serves on the Gambling Community Benefit Fund which gives away $ 13 million each quarter to worthy organisations. Mr Lindsay sent me in a list of names of some of the Queensland schools applying for grant money. How are these for good Aussie place names: Goovigen ( Central Queensland), Kiamkillenbun ( Darling Downs), Biboohra ( Atherton Tableland), Worongary ( Gold Coast), Warraburra ( Rockhampton), Meringandan ( Toowoomba), Thulimbah ( Granite Belt) and Narbethhong ( Brisbane).
HIGHLANDS TRAGEDY
YOU might have read the story of Australian concert pianist turned pilot David Tong who died waiting for help to arrive after crashing in his plane in the Saruwaged Range in the PNG Highlands on December 23. He was in his early 30s. Former PNG and Townsvillebased Qantas international check pilot Richard Broomhead sent this email early this week. It makes for interesting reading. This is what he said: “I deliver an address on the subject ‘ Aircraft accidents in PNG’ in which I detail, with photos, the period 1965 to 1996 when over 150 pilots were killed opening up PNG, in particular the Highlands, which cover an area from here ( Coolum) to the Gold Coast and the sea coast to Toowoomba. There were no roads to or within the highlands for 30 years. I was on eight searches for missing pilots and we only ever found three, one of whom survived. The young man ( David Tong) crashed in the Saruwaged ranges to the north of Lae in PNG on the 23rd of December. Although badly smashed up, and at an altitude of more than 3000 metres, he was able to send an SOS to his mate via his ephone. The search planes and helicopters could not get near him due to inclement weather and the ground party could only be dropped 3km away due to the almost vertical terrain. He is thought to have died the next day, or perhaps didn’t survive the cold night at that altitude. David gave up a brilliant career as a concert pianist to follow his true love of aviation.”