Little time to comment on Carp Control Plan
DEBATE is raging across the Murray Darling Basin states after the National Carp Control Plan (NCCP) released the final discussion papers on its Your Say web page, a move which allowed just two weeks for the public to comment.
The closing date to comment is December 12.
Late last year the Commonwealth extended the plan, looking at the potential impacts of a species-specific virus being released into waterways to reduce European carp numbers, for 12 months.
Local fishing advocate and Inland Waterways president Matt Hansen said carp create massive problems that need to be addressed.
“Carp are considered the rabbits of our waterways, and are responsible for doing incredible amounts of damage to the entire Murray Darling Basin and beyond. It would be fantastic to see their numbers reduced significantly through the safe release of the carp virus,” Mr Hansen said.
The carp virus, Cyprinid herpesvirus 3, has been around for many decades in many different countries – it’s not something that has just been dreamt up by a bunch of Aussie researchers, and unlike some of the outspoken opponents of the strategy would have you believe, it has never jumped from the species and is totally specific to Carp.
“When Sturt first stumbled onto the banks of the Darling River in the early 1800s he described our inland rivers as ‘the bottom being visible at great depths’, with large fish in shoals, floating like birds in mid-air, but Carp have done a great job of all but reversing that description – Sturt would roll in his grave if he could see the state of our river today,” Mr Hansen said.
Feedback to the NCCP discussion page was more negative than positive, with people concerned about the unknown or unintended, and potential adverse effects of releasing the virus into Australian waterways.
But many in the industry believe the social media comments are being impacted by loud noises from Koi breeders and carp netting contractors, and are not representative of the general population, but rather are coming from a relatively small group which stands to lose financially and is motivated to make as loud a noise as possible.
And there are plenty of diverse
views being shared i n this debate, including research published under the title of ‘Ecological impacts of invasive carp in Australian dryland rivers, September 2019’, which had this finding:
“Not all expected responses were found, indicating that the general understanding of carp impact requires modification for dryland rivers.
“Notably, carp did not increase turbidity or reduce macroinvertebrate density or composition, probably because of key attributes of dryland rivers.
“In contrast, there were large impacts on native fish biomass, not from the mechanisms expected, but from food resource monopolisation by carp,” the research stated.
The debate continues.
THE range of cultural opportunities on offer to audiences across the region will include performances by the Monkey Baa Theatre Company next year.
Member for Dubbo Dugald Saunders and Minister for the Arts Don Harwin announced funding this week to support performing arts companies to take their productions on the road across regional NSW.
“Every community and region in NSW deserves its fair access to the arts and cultural experiences that our country has to offer,” Mr Harwin said.
“These are some truly excellent productions that will now be touring across NSW and bring their acts to audiences they would not normally reach.”