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Author Topic: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort  (Read 18151 times)

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #15 on: January 17, 2012, 09:58:46 AM »
I think Shaun (fishfolk) would have a pretty good idea if the Stocking Permit has been issued, and if he says it hasn't we should believe him.  I'm sure the "barra eating the lungfish" local story had about as much merit as most of the local stories that get thrown around.

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #16 on: January 17, 2012, 10:23:42 AM »

Paradise Stocking
Association lnc.

To Whom It May Concern
On behalf oft he Paradise Stocking Association Inc. Executive
Committee, I am writing to thank you for the generous sponsorship/donation
given to this organisation for the second "Catch a Ca#y Fishing Competition". The two
days were very successful and great enjoyment was had by all. Monies raised, will be
used to purchase fingerlings to stock the Paradise Dam and hopefully next year will be
bigger and better Thank you for your help.
(name)
Secretary

Sorry couldn't get letter head in. I also withheld the name of the secretary for obvious reasons.

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #17 on: January 17, 2012, 01:12:19 PM »
Dont sweat the permit to much, can take quite a while to get it through, particulary a first one. Took a few months for Ewen Maddock's first one to show up, only about 4 to 6 weeks for the extension to cover the second dam.




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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #18 on: January 17, 2012, 04:19:31 PM »
Dont sweat the permit to much, can take quite a while to get it through, particulary a first one. Took a few months for Ewen Maddock's first one to show up, only about 4 to 6 weeks for the extension to cover the second dam.
I rang DEEDI today and they can't tell me anything as to stocking Paradise Dam is a privately owned water (so the girl said). It's owned by Sunwater, whom I rang and they said they'd get back to me. I guess it might be a bit like awoonga which isn't on the SIP System. It has it's own fish Hatchery and is funded by the Gladstone Water Board.
I'll keep digging until I find out some more. I would say is it's coming just a matter of timing, it's all good!

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #19 on: January 17, 2012, 05:05:02 PM »
The acceptence of the Paradise Dam fish stocking management plan and the subsequent permit to stock Paradise dam sits very firmly within DEEDI. Whilst DEEDI takes advice from stakeholders (i.e. Sunwater, DERM, SEQ Water, etc...) the decision sits very much with the Chief Executive DEEDI.
The decision to stock Paradise Dam is one that has divided opinion not only amongst the community, but also with government, and even, within DEEDI. I suggest that the decision is further away than closer... The whole Queensland Stocking Program is under review at the moment and I assume that nothing would even remotely would be forthcoming until that is released (sometime this year) - the group (I thought) were well aware of the lengthy timeframe they had before them....maybe I was wrong !!!

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #20 on: January 17, 2012, 06:37:07 PM »
I think Shaun (fishfolk) would have a pretty good idea if the Stocking Permit has been issued, and if he says it hasn't we should believe him.  I'm sure the "barra eating the lungfish" local story had about as much merit as most of the local stories that get thrown around.

Dale on what basis are you so sure that the 'barra eating the lungfish' story has no merit?? Suppose you got some data to back your confidence up? Lungfish have been around 120+ million years and once were spread across the Australian continent - but that was before the advent of modern ray finned fishes - it may be no coincidence that they were historically restricted to the Burnett and Mary River basins when white fellas got here - while the Mary had cod the Burnett was particularly light on for large top order predators - although barra were distributed up the Burnett historical densities were never that high (certainly nothing like what occurs in a stocked impoundment) and bass did not occur there and on most accounts only at relatively low densities in the Mary. 

Many 'locals' don't see a problem cause there's s**tloads of lungfish - so why worry about them - but the issue is that most of the fish you see are adults and can be anything up to ~90 years old. Its the young juveniles (and sub adults) that are thin of the ground - and potentially most vulnerable to an artifically high density of stocked large predators. The other problem for the Burnett population is that more than half of their core habitat in the system is now backed up by dams and impoundments - and lungfish require flow associated habitat for successful recruitment. In a situation where up to half their breeding habitat has been stuffed by flow regulation, and connectivity of breding populations buggered by ineffective fish passage - hamering whats left of juvenile recuitment by an artifically high stocked predator population is not particualy prudent conservation management.

Regards barra already being in the system its true, but the densities are low, particularly in the lower reaches of the river which inversely hold the core populations of lungfish.

What rec fishers have got to realise is that ecologically there is no justification for filling up every availble bit of river system/ impoundment with desirable sport fish - as much as we may all enjoy stocked fisheries - sometimes there are other values at stake - certainly in the area concerned it is not as though rec fishers are wanting for access to stocked barra fisheries - monduran, Awonga Leenthalls - at the very least there should be a committment to conduct monitoring studies to see what happens to juvenile and sub adult lungfish when you get high densities of metre plus barra sharing the water with them,  if juvenile abundances plumet then stocking should be discontinued - with long lived fish like lungies you'll continue to see apparently good populations of adults long after recuitment has been impacted until one day the oldies die off and then there is no replacement by young fish. -
Alternatively if fish passage was rectified throughout the Burnett River system barra could populate it naturaly - albeit at natural recruitment densities..!

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #21 on: January 17, 2012, 09:01:31 PM »
G'Day Jim. Noting your comments regarding interupted flows from barriers impacting lungfish. From my limited experience I support your comments. I ponder however, with of the barriers on the very heavily regulated Burnett River system there would no doubt be little viable water left for Lungfish, particularly in the many dams/lakes, why not stock other natives to get some alternate use from the water before it all gets used for irrigation?

I've got no doubt that if a little Lungfish swam past a big barra that was hungry, that the lungy would get eaten. Same for a cod, bass or any other predator. But if lungfish don't prefer lake habitat, they're less likely to cross paths with stocked fish.

At days end, we all know barriers across rivers are bad news for rivers, heaven knows I've railed on about the impacts enough. But the dams & weirs are there & dumb old rec anglers aren't going to be able to have them removed. I do very much doubt that stocked fish are high on the list of worst impacts for lungfish. If there were no barriers, we wouldn't need restocking of anything; a pipe dream now, but for lungfish I think some decisive action is required to help them as opposed to just letting them do their own thing in an ever diminishing habitat.
Maybe more Noah's Arks eg the successful translocations to the Brisbane, Pine, Stanley, Coomera rivers perhaps where it is worth noted that the lungfish were able to establish themselves in the presence of middle and apex predator fish species (Bass, Cod, JPs, Bull Sharks, Jacks etc) and still appear to be maintaining populations levels even in the face of high stocking rates of middle & apex predator species AND these rivers being regulated as well. Maybe, just maybe, Lungfish are hardier than what we thought...More research needed in alot of areas I recon.

Cheers

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #22 on: January 18, 2012, 06:04:55 AM »
Bugger, had my hops up there for a while!

If the election gets called, DEEDI, like all govt departments, will hold the line on making decisions on anything contentious until after the election. If as expected there is a change of Govt, DEEDI will be busy restructuring for 6 months or more afterwards, DERM will likely not exist in its current format, so who knows what will happen and how long it will take to settle down. If there is not a change of Government, it will still be a mess as so many Labor pollies are jumping ship this election it will virtually be a new ball game anyway.

While the Paradise Stocking Group are waiting for their permit, they should be using all their chook raffle money to bolster the upstream stocking of Barra by their sister stocking group, which will of course eventually end up down in the dam. Obviously whilst the permits wont be for many fish, being only to stock weirs, they should be ensuring that the max possible are going in.

Its like all these things, I can only take advice with a large grain of salt. The amount spent on research is small, there is little peer review of the research, it is often conducted by groups or persons with preconceived ideas, certainly no funding is made for additional or secondary research to take initial findings and hypothesis to higher levels of confidence.   

So despite seeing massive numbers of lungfish in NPD when I fish it, I'm told they dont like dams and wont breed in them, then I am told the stocked fish in dams will eat the juvenile lungfish that are not in the dam because they wont be breeding in there anyway.  :o









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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2012, 11:07:22 AM »
Probably been more research done on Lungfish than any other Australian  freshwater fish with several projects ongoing.
They do breed in the dams seen millions of fertile eggs (as I am sure other people reading this have) but due to their early stages of development the chances of them surviving would be zero.
In NPD predation of eggs and larvae would be close to total by Redclaw and Tilapia which inhabit the areas where eggs are deposited, the stocked fish most likely would not get a chance to eat them. 

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #24 on: January 18, 2012, 11:22:00 AM »
The other problem with lungy recruitment is the relatively long time that the eggs take to hatch. During this time they need to be covered with a certain depth of flowing water and also need a certain type of reeds. With the frequent change of water levels in the dams and weirs what would have been a successful recruitment fails to eventuate.
I fear for the future of the lungies in NPD as with every overflow event more get killed despite the rescue attempts.
 Cheers
Ray

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #25 on: January 18, 2012, 09:44:41 PM »
Wonder about the sustainabilty of lungies downstream of the NPD wall, yarned to some fishos on the week end that target them with bait from the weir - didnt exactly seem like they were fully briefed on good CnR practices

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Re: News on paradise Dam & my xmas effort
« Reply #26 on: January 18, 2012, 10:12:15 PM »
Lungfish of many size classes including subadults do 'like' and utilise dam /lake habitat (including the impounded reaches of the Burnett) - they just don't recruit that successfully in it unless provided with suitable aquatic plant substrates for their eggs and tucker rich aquatic plant margins for their juveniles - in some of the Brisbane region impoundments these breeding substrates have been provided (in the past ) by water hyacinth. In many impoundments the suite of macropytes that develop, steep edged channel profiles, fluctuating water levels associated with water releases all combine to create conditions unsuitable for spawning or juvenile nursery habitat and sustainable recruitment - but as Fitzy says their is much research that needs to be done. I support what Binder says too, if the Burnett boys have existing permits for their upstream weirs continue to stock those - but don't load Patradise up with barra stocking yet until more is understood about the potnetial costs of it - I mean like local vested interests aside are we that short of barra dams in this part of SE Qld?

BTW Fitzy - I agree that we arn't going to take dams away - but there is so much more that can be done in terms of designing effective fish passage if we really get Governments committed to it!

 

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