What People Are Muttering

[nemu]

Having read through this forum I would assume a general consensus among the members would be in making more rec only areas particularly pittwater in the lower hawksbury for this to happen it would need another buyout and the way funding is in NSW it aint going to happen Fisheries need to be lobbied about this why can't licence fees be used for this.The commercial guys need an actractive offer and training for a new career that is acceptable for them to take.My view is with aquaculture in both the hawksbury an Botany Kingfish are a fish that can be farmed sucessfully and done on a scale that would suffice the market I can't see why it would'nt make sense for what the dollar is worth to the rec fish industry to the local areas involved lots more fish means lots more money and after all these same commercial guys that fish these places now could instead look after the running of these fish pens or holds however it is done that way they stay on the water they stay happy and we can't cry about decimation of wild stock any more.Fishfarming is the way of the future no matter what the argument is if they don't start now when will it ever start its already done on a small scale in Botany so why have we not not learned from this endeavour its still there so it must be sustainable someone must be making something out of it I wish all fish that went to market had been bred in aquaculture you only have to look at the tackle shops to see the worth in rec fishing grrrrrrrr+_+_) Rebel BCF BLAH BLAH BLAH a shop the list goes on and these are major retailers so the money does the talking here, that is why I think why not fund aquaculture with fee money?The way Nathan Rees is going he'll be using it inapropriatlly soon with nothing to do with fishing they probably do that anyway.But I could yarp forever about what I think I think I make good sense does anyone beg to differ?

[pelican]

My problem with fish farming is what fish are used as the feed. Pointless raping baitfish from the wild ( especially from overseas fisheries) environment with a huge bycatch issue and feeding penned fish. Don't really like the idea of pigs trotter in the feed either as it reminds me of the mad cow or CJD style issues. Sustainability of fish farming really has to be looked at holistically taking into the data the full environmental cost of feeding them.

There has been huge issues with salmon farmed and wild salmon.

I won't even venture into the battery chicken v's caged fish debate but it does have to be considered. Our waters have a lot of fish and I think that we realy have to look at the agreements governments give out that allow fish to be caught and exported direct from motherships rather than ever touch land in Australia. They get a fee but not sure how much come back to the fishing industry or States off which the waters they are caught. I think there is a lot of income from fishing that we never see as it goes into government general revenue. I have no idea if these licences issued vary according to local market rates.

So hard to quantify when I think bad data in means bad data out and good data is very expensive to aquire let anyone the issue of resolving inputs and cause and affect of recreational and commercial fishing or change in policy or seasonal diffrences. It all just doesn't quite add up as we share the ocean with so many other countries who have different practises.

I wish I knew enough to make propper comment and not just be a nimby and say not in my backyard but even good reports written by good scientists can have statistics that make it add up to whatever the presenter wants it to say. Shame we don't invest in enough science to see what the truth is. Maybe if fish breathed CO2 we would hear a bit more of both sides.

Pel

Edited November 14, 2008 by pelican

[Ross Hunter]

My problem with fish farming is what fish are used as the feed. Pointless raping baitfish from the wild ( especially from overseas fisheries) environment with a huge bycatch issue and feeding penned fish. Don't really like the idea of pigs trotter in the feed either as it reminds me of the mad cow or CJD style issues. Sustainability of fish farming really has to be looked at holistically taking into the data the full environmental cost of feeding them.

There has been huge issues with salmo farmed and wild salmon.

I won't even venture into the battery chicken v's caged fish debate but it does have to be considered. Our waters have a lot of fish and I think that we realy have to look at the agreements governments give out that allow fish to be caught and exported direct from motherships rather than ever touch land in Australia. They get a fee but not sure how much come back to the fishing industry or Sates off which the waters they are caught. I think there is a lot of income from fishing that we never see as it goes into government general revenue. I have no idea if these lisences issued vary according to local market rates.

So hard to quantify when I think bad data in menas bad data out and good data is very expensive to aquire let anyone the issue of resolving inputs and cause and affect of recreational and commercial fishing or change in policy or seasonal diffrences. It all just doesn't quite add up as we share the ocean with so many other countries who have different practises.

I wish I knew enough to make propper comment and not just be a nimby and say not in my backyard but even good reports written by good scientists can have statistics that make it add up to whatever the presenter wants it to say. Shame we don't invest in enough science to see what the truth is. Maybe if fish breathed CO2 we would hear a bit more of both sides.

Pel

Pelican,

You make a great point that if fish breathed air we could count them accurately, like kangaroos and eagles. There has been a couple of studies on the viabillity of a yellowfin fishery in FNQld but by and large no other scientific study has been carried out by scientists in Australia that has any credence or that has funded with unlimited funding that this sort of study requires..

The Ocean has always been out of sight out of mind by those who hand out the dollars.

[Ross Hunter]

Having read through this forum I would assume a general consensus among the members would be in making more rec only areas particularly pittwater in the lower hawksbury for this to happen it would need another buyout and the way funding is in NSW it aint going to happen Fisheries need to be lobbied about this why can't licence fees be used for this.The commercial guys need an actractive offer and training for a new career that is acceptable for them to take.My view is with aquaculture in both the hawksbury an Botany Kingfish are a fish that can be farmed sucessfully and done on a scale that would suffice the market I can't see why it would'nt make sense for what the dollar is worth to the rec fish industry to the local areas involved lots more fish means lots more money and after all these same commercial guys that fish these places now could instead look after the running of these fish pens or holds however it is done that way they stay on the water they stay happy and we can't cry about decimation of wild stock any more.Fishfarming is the way of the future no matter what the argument is if they don't start now when will it ever start its already done on a small scale in Botany so why have we not not learned from this endeavour its still there so it must be sustainable someone must be making something out of it I wish all fish that went to market had been bred in aquaculture you only have to look at the tackle shops to see the worth in rec fishing grrrrrrrr+_+_) Rebel BCF BLAH BLAH BLAH a shop the list goes on and these are major retailers so the money does the talking here, that is why I think why not fund aquaculture with fee money?The way Nathan Rees is going he'll be using it inapropriatlly soon with nothing to do with fishing they probably do that anyway.But I could yarp forever about what I think I think I make good sense does anyone beg to differ?

Nemu,

Jeez Mate I hope that the pros are not expecting too much money from Rees The way they're going with their mini budget they may have to pay them with axe heads and beads.. The latest from our Labour saviours..."Let's shut down the trout hatchery in Jindy it's only been going since 1907 ..Na! we've thought about Shut it down"..... Aqua culture is going to be the saviour of our fisheries in the next decade or two I feel, even without a labour Government that's going from bad to worse every day when it comes to recreational fishos.

Ross

[pjbink]

Pelican,

You make a great point that if fish breathed air we could count them accurately, like kangaroos and eagles. There has been a couple of studies on the viabillity of a yellowfin fishery in FNQld but by and large no other scientific study has been carried out by scientists in Australia that has any credence or that has funded with unlimited funding that this sort of study requires..

The Ocean has always been out of sight out of mind by those who hand out the dollars.

NSW (and Australia) simply dosen't have the resources to study in detail the poulations of every species (and there are a lot of them). The appropriate thing to do in this situation is to managae by input restrictions (limiting the number of fishermen and their ability to catch fish) rather than output restrictions (ie TACS and quotas which rely on a total estimate of the fish stock). A lot of the effort has been removed from NSW waters with the no of commercial fishermen being reduced from around 800 in the 1990's to 1200 today.

[nemu]

To add a reply 1stly the pros can expect nothing cause it ain't gunna happen 2ndly the matter of feeding farmed fish?What about farmed food it would be local and carry no bio problems as it is local(how good are farmed prawns? good enough for us humans to eat)and3rdly wild fish? other than brood stock there is no revellance to fish caught in the wild firstly as in the circumstance I'm talking about these species(Kingfish)would be made a rec only species in the bio zone in question but I must add these fish are migratory fish.Fish tagged of the Sth coast NSW have been recaptured in New Zealand and it is known they do trans Tasman voyagers so what I'm saying here is what is the point making a rec haven when 120 mile down the road these same fish can be caught add hoc any old how I guess the bottom line is the overall management buy our fisheries powers to be I was mearly stating what I've read here on this forum and put forward I think an idea that would work adjacent to our Hawksbury region people can argue till they turn blue about what we should and shouldn't do but untill we can muster the fish and put through a crush to count it is obviouse to anyone that has spent any time on the water in the last 40-50 years that there is a real peril in our oceans that needs addressing all I've done is put an idea forward that would help address this peril and help bring a fishery back to what it use to be.

[pjbink]

There is some interesting research about what the fishing 'used to be', titled The Good Old Days? Historic Insights into NSW Coastal Fish Populations and Fisheries. Done by Dr Julian Peperell (see his column in Dec MF), he starts with the earliest accounts of Capt Cook and the First Fleet. Fresh fish was intended to be the food supply of the 1300 or so colonists and many accounts of fish and fishing were written during this period. The prevailing theme was that while the occassional good haul was caught (when identified usually Aust salmon or snapper), catches were very unpredictable and long periods of relatively scarcitiy of fish, especially in winter, were repeatedly noted. Certainly catches of fish were never bountiful enought to produce a glut or to permit smoking or preserving on any scale. In fact the colony came close to failure with even some cases of death by starvation. The conclusion of this part of the study was that fish populations, at least in the Sydney area, where nowhere near abundant as one might imagine.

[Jewhunter]

There is some interesting research about what the fishing 'used to be', titled The Good Old Days? Historic Insights into NSW Coastal Fish Populations and Fisheries. Done by Dr Julian Peperell (see his column in Dec MF), he starts with the earliest accounts of Capt Cook and the First Fleet. Fresh fish was intended to be the food supply of the 1300 or so colonists and many accounts of fish and fishing were written during this period. The prevailing theme was that while the occassional good haul was caught (when identified usually Aust salmon or snapper), catches were very unpredictable and long periods of relatively scarcitiy of fish, especially in winter, were repeatedly noted. Certainly catches of fish were never bountiful enought to produce a glut or to permit smoking or preserving on any scale. In fact the colony came close to failure with even some cases of death by starvation. The conclusion of this part of the study was that fish populations, at least in the Sydney area, where nowhere near abundant as one might imagine.

Or they just didn't know how to fish!

Coming from England, what knowledge of fishing for our species did they have?

Cheers,

Grant.

[pjbink]

Or they just didn't know how to fish!

Coming from England, what knowledge of fishing for our species did they have?

Cheers,

Grant.

Dr Peperell conidered that, but thought it seems somewhat unlikely given that so much effort was put into fishing for food in the early days of the colony. Some of the reports mentioned that they were using siene nets - which are pretty effective on schooling fish.

[nemu]

One must think about how one would have used these sien nets firstly the heavy boats secondly they where rowed so as to assume it was carried out in a manner that it was done quickly would be a reason not to catch fish just picture this happening the splashing the haste the commottion alone rowing these heavy wooden boats would have scared the fish of you must also take into account what these early colonists thought edible they thought the lump on snapper was a cancerouse growth so anything big was thrown away.To say the abunduncy of what was in our past was what not what one might think I'd say one would be a little bit ignorant or just naive one would only need to visit any off the gamefish clubs to see what was once was (I'm reffering to Sydney clubs i.e Sydney Pt Hacking and so forth)I could not in my wildest dreams imagine what the fishing was like at the time of the first fleet.!!

[andrew399]

Hey i dont really know much about the topic of fish farming but Pelican i am pretty sure that they feed them pellets not bait fish, at least thats the case with the kingies that are farmed down in SA. Also, i think the issue they have is that the fish all interbreed etc, and although fine to eat they are messed up genetically, then if the fish escape and start breeding with wild stock then it spreads the inbreeding...

anyways, i think that farming is definately the way of the future and there is no denying that stocks have dramaticaly decreased.... I do hope that they keep the harbour rec only though!!

[pelican]

depends on what the pellets are made from as well. Some are fish protein ( ground up fish) but contain preservatives. Other farms have used baitfish. The fish farmers ran a campain at one stage to try and have overseas bait fish bought in frozen as they had accessed it as little threat. Don;t think it was ever approved.

Other protien pellets can contain anything from other animals and soy. There has been problems in Canada and Britain with food for fish farms.

It is all these details taht need science tosolve for the long term so we have a healthy anoimaland something good to eat.

Unless they sterilise ( possibly chemically or genetically) the farmed fisgh there is always the chance of them being in the wild and possibly wrecking wild populations

i don't know enough about teh Australian industry

Edited November 27, 2008 by pelican

[Ross Hunter]

depends on what the pellets are made from as well. Some are fish protein ( ground up fish) but contain preservatives. Other farms have used baitfish. The fish farmers ran a campain at one stage to try and have overseas bait fish bought in frozen as they had accessed it as little threat. Don;t think it was ever approved.

Other protien pellets can contain anything from other animals and soy. There has been problems in Canada and Britain with food for fish farms.

It is all these details taht need science tosolve for the long term so we have a healthy anoimaland something good to eat.

Unless they sterilise ( possibly chemically or genetically) the farmed fisgh there is always the chance of them being in the wild and possibly wrecking wild populations

i don't know enough about teh Australian industry

Many years ago the South Australian tuna fatteners (always remember that these guys do not breed their stock in the case of the SB tuna they purse seine thousands and thousands of tonnes of them and sell them to the lucrative Japanes and overseas markets) created a virus which spread along our east and west coasts, all but wiping out our pilchard population, the pichards took 20 years to come back to anything like they were. I can recall trolling through acres of dead and dying pilles in that era.

The virus was caused by imported pilchards, we certainly do not want that again. It is just one of the hazards of fish fattening in pens, but it is the future of our fishery, without this there will be little in the way of wild stocks in some species, especially the SBT'S..go aquaculture I say. The Japanese have started to breed tuna in pens that may be their saviour

Ross

[pjbink]

Some greenies are even less keen on aquaculture than wild fisheries. Sure aquaculture has some environmental problems but it does increase productivity and therefore takes pressure off wild fisheries.

Check this out - an activist got sued (and lost) for defaming an aquaculture operator in Canada. Might be a good idea for similar action against the NPA's statements promoting marine parks! After all people will lose their livelyhoods over this, many without compensation:

ACTIVIST HYPE OVER FARMED SALMON EARNS FIVE-FIGURE FINE

Canadian anti-farmed salmon activist Don Staniford discovered that inflating accusations against legitimate enterprises in Canada is frowned upon by Canadian courts. In January 2007, Staniford, formerly of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound pressure group, now an employee of the Pure Salmon Campaign, received a CA$74,099 judgment against him for making defamatory statements against Canadian salmon farming corporation, Creative Salmon. Staniford has yet to pay anything towards those fines causing the Canadian court to demand his appearance in court this week.

In June 2005 after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found trace amounts of the banned antifungal malachite green in a single fish, Staniford issued two press releases calling Creative Salmon a "liar" and a "consumer fraud." Creative Salmon raises indigenous Chinook Salmon and is striving to gain "organic" status for its fish. The court found against Staniford and accused him of knowing that Creative Salmon did not use malachite green and of ignoring that knowledge when penning the two press releases. He was found guilty of misleading the public about the quality of the Creative Salmon operations.

Staniford's appeals won a delay with a hearing set for December.

[pelican]

Gillfisher

In the policy document of NPA they actually state they don't want aquaculture but in exceptional cases will accept oyster leases for a limited period.

Well I hope no one likes oysters a sthe NSW industry just go NPA-ed. They have a industry association so that should be one more group to recruit.

Will hav eto start soending my time falsifying my parentage so I have a bit of aboriginal blood in me so I can take teh kids for a fish when I'm older. I'm sure I'll find some aboriginal blood in me so I can go for a fish.