Fish finger-ling-er-longer
JUST add water. Lots of it.
As newly-minted Agriculture Minister, whose portfolio includes responsibilities for fisheries, Dugald Saunders helped tip 5000 fingerlings at Dubbo’s main boat ramp on Monday morning. The full and fast-flowing river was a world away from the drought ravaged, cracked and dried riverbeds that were the confronting reality just three years ago when old enemies came together to save an insurance population of Murray Cod.
Those fish were rescued by volunteers from Inland Waterways/ozfish, local farmers and irrigators and staff from the Department of Primary Industries, groups that had spent plenty of time at loggerheads with each other in the past. On Monday the last 5000 fish which were bred from that insurance population got to swim free in their traditional country.
“It’s a really nice homecoming. It’s a beautiful story and it’s a really significant thank-you to all of the people involved not only from DPI Fisheries but also rec fishing groups right across inland waterways of NSW,” Mr Saunders told Dubbo Photo News as he stood in the Macquarie River with shoes and socks off and pants hitched up to his knees.
“Teamwork makes the dream
work and it certainly does in the fisheries’ space – so with DPI Fisheries and also farmers and fishermen and women all up and down our inland waterways, we’ve seen the ability to see record numbers of fingerlings released and this of course comes on the back of record drought in 2019.”
He said that existential crisis had a silver lining in that it brought opposed groups together to collaborate.
“What we saw in 2019 and before that, it was a record drought, no-one had ever really been through that before and we saw people having to work together. I think we see the best in people when things are going wrong and it brings out resilience, it brings out tenacity and it certainly brings out a common theme which is we need to do more for our native fish.”
Acting senior inland fisheries manager Matthew Mclellan drove the last batch of fingerlings to Dubbo, capping off a total of half a million fingerlings from those rescued fish that have been put into inland rivers as part of 1.27 million Murray Cod fingerlings released in the past 12 months, almost double the previous record.
“The help we had from the public was amazing. There were a lot of people who were hurting and upset and understandably so because it was a real tragedy unfolding but what we were able to bring out of that, by cooperating with the community and getting those local people involved (resulted in) getting a great result for the fish,” Mr Mclellan said.
Local fishing advocate Matt Hansen said they were grim days in 2019 when the lower Wambuul/macquarie’s water, or what was left of it, had turned black and lost the ability to keep fish alive, sparking massive fish deaths across the western region.
He says it’s not just the return of these fingerlings and good seasonal rain that’s making such a positive difference.
“Even in just a short space of time we’ve really got a roll on. We saw $13.5 million in fish screens for irrigation pumps announced which is going to safeguard the population of fish in this river.
“We’ve seen much of the illegal fishing stamped out and we’ve seen a changing of the culture so that catch and release really does play a major part – you don’t see big Murray Cod swinging off clotheslines like you used to.
“Put all that put together, as we stand here now in 2022, shows we’re really starting to get some runs on the board and some projects that we can be proud of.”