Gladstone Harbour and tributaries, closed to fishing

[Member]

it was when i went searching for a closure of recreational fishing i could only find the write up from the local rag so i was not a believer of a total fishing ban for such a huge area, the problem is with sick fish and understand the reason for pro's and concern if recreational was going to consume their catch . just found it hard to believe that if i drove to benaraby i could not wet a line thats all, was not having a dig at your mate more so that it was only published in the paper and i was not able to find it any where else.. 

[Member]

Thanks for the heads up Dale. I think that anything in the public interest is great to find out about. The local tourism folks will be going nuts. One post here said about the ban extending as far away as Rodd's Bay that's a fair range. Any truth in that Dale?
Cheers,
John

[Member]

Here's a map showing boundaries of the closure

[Member]

it was when i went searching for a closure of recreational fishing i could only find the write up from the local rag so i was not a believer of a total fishing ban for such a huge area, the problem is with sick fish and understand the reason for pro's and concern if recreational was going to consume their catch . just found it hard to believe that if i drove to benaraby i could not wet a line thats all, was not having a dig at your mate more so that it was only published in the paper and i was not able to find it any where else.. 

The call by DEEDI was only made at 4.00pm yesterday.  I doubt that anyone there works 24 hours a day to update web sites.  It is not being spread by the consumption of fish, from what I can find out it is spread by contact with either the fish or the water.  It will probably be the case that all fish at Gladstone Hatchery will be euthenased (sp?) because their water comes straight from the harbour.  There were a few hundred thousand fingerlings ready to go, not to mention brood stock.

[Member]

geez I hope your wrong about that Dale, the southern Barra dams are going to be stuffed for a long time if they don't get a good dose of fingerlings this summer after all the rain and flooding.



 

[Member]

It is not being spread by the consumption of fish, from what I can find out it is spread by contact with either the fish or the water

Guys Dale is correct about it not just being an issue with consuming fish, it’s also about contact with fish and/or the water. 

So would I get fined if I was going out for sports fish (catch and release) while the closure is in place?

The reality is no one has a clue or wants to lay blame to the cause, seems to be a major arse covering exercise between government departments, industry and the pollies. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the issue started when the dredging began, one would have expected that an “interim” ban would have been placed on any further dredging until the issue had been resolved. Or would that have been too obvious???

Time for me to get of the high horse before I fall off……..
Regards
Earl

[Member]

Let's forget the politics of why this happened, as there is nothing we can do on this site to correct that.  Write to your politicians if you want to, but we won't fill Sweetwater with bitchy political posts.  This has happened, and there is a danger to anyone who doesn't follow these directives.  This could be an Australian first with regard to isolating an area so let's just hope nobody else has health issues caused by it.

[Member]

Haven't seen a photo of one of the affected fish yet so here's one from a while back.  Note the cloudy eye and lesion on the tail, also note the ding in the head where perhaps this fishy head butted concrete at 30kph. 



If I may, an 'over the horizon' perspective, take it with a grain of salt as I'm nowhere near the action . 

Biggest mobs of fish took the plunge 10 or so months ago, I suspect that early estimates of how many went over the wall were an underestimation based on what people are saying about fish sightings and activity in the dam atm.  Those fish that survived appear to have lost between 25 and 30% of their body weight in that short period of time.  Regardless of anything else that would be extremely stressful for those fish. 

Put all those fish into a number of large schools (which appears be what happened) all in close contact with each other, all under stress.  Throw in any form of environmental pathogen into that mix and the the chances of the disease taking hold and spreading would have to be pretty favourable.  Even what might be normally considered to be low risk diseases could become deadly in such situations. 

Poorer water quality, due to increased turbidity, sudden environmental changes such as temperature could impact on the fish and also be conducive to the spread of the pathogen, there's a host of variables.

One thing I do know is generally you have to have a number of things to go wrong at the same time in nature to have a something fall off the rails. In this case stressed fish schooled up, a naturally occurring pathogen breeding up as the water warms and finally some suspect water quality all mixed together could give the current situation, take any one of those events away and you don't have the problem or the scale of the problem.

Has any other fish species been found to be crook, and if so how many? That answer may well provide some of the missing pieces to the puzzle.

Note: I'm speculating only on all of the above.
       

[Member]

dead bream, dead herring, dead mullet, dead king salmon, dead estuary cod, dead fork tailed catfish.......................................... ...........................................not thousands of each, but enough for it to be alarming.

[Member]

This one was near death and removed from the water.

[Member]

Milky eyed, and tattered tail, yet still able to function. ( eat, swim, fight, jump)................but it's days are numbered.................................

[Member]

What about dugongss ? There was film of a dead dugong on the box last night but I'm pretty sure it was file footage and not in the last week. There were suggestions turtles as well were affected so that sounds like poor water quality. Pat.

[Member]

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/dugong-deaths-in-gladstone-harbour-spell-ecological-disaster/story-e6freon6-1226101522931

[Member]

Fitzy,
Thanks for the maps mate.
John

[Member]

 :OMGjeez Guys !!!
This is a bit sad  I hope things have improved by the time our annual trip comes around .
We'll be up there on the 5th of November which is only 6 weeks away  I'd be a bugger to drive nearly 2000 k's & not to be able to fish . Although we can still fish awoonga , we like to be able to get out in the salty stuff aswell .
Thanks for bringing this to out attention Dale .

Johnny were those barra out of the boyne  ??
cheers AL