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On Maugean Skate Recovery Team Communique …
Communique – National Recovery Team for the Maugean Skate, 12 October 2023
Meeting 2: Public Communique
The National Recovery Team for the Maugean Skate met for the second time, in Hobart and on-line, on 9 October 2023. The Chair acknowledged the significant body of work progressed since the first meeting, which included formation of Recovery Team working groups with national and international researchers, technical experts and practitioners to inform actions. A summary of these working groups is presented below.
Captive Breeding Working Group
Aim: to establish an ex-situ insurance population to develop a long-term captive breeding program, implementing best-practice welfare standards and husbandry protocols.
Update: Expert elicitation workshops were held in September providing a platform for international experts to share their knowledge and expertise in captive breeding programs for other skates, sharks or rays. Key areas for consideration included insights on husbandry and reproductive requirements for breeding skates in captivity, and how relevant and applicable these learnings may be to the Maugean skate. The project team are working through the animal ethics and other relevant permit processes for taking a limited numbers of eggs and adults from the wild as soon as possible, with the aim of initiating a captive population by the end of 2023.
Population Viability Analysis scenarios have been completed to inform this process.
Environmental Remediation Working Group
Aim: to assess possible immediate and longer-term options to improve dissolved oxygen levels in Macquarie Harbour.
Update: Workshops were held in August and September, providing a platform for experts to share their knowledge in dissolved oxygen remediation programs from other areas, both within Australia and around the world, and for the group to consider and assess potential options.
Key outcomes of these workshops were to provide advice on feasibility of urgent and immediate options for action prior to summer 2023. A pilot remediation program involving injection of oxygen into the harbour will commence prior to December (subject to permits and licences) and will include monitoring of environmental conditions in the water column and sediments. Similar programs have been successfully used in other parts of the world to increase concentrations of dissolved oxygen in estuarine systems.
Dissolved Oxygen Working Group
Aim: to assess possible immediate and longer-term options to provide decision support to the Recovery Team on monitoring, modelling and data sharing relevant to dissolved oxygen conditions in Macquarie Harbour and management scenarios/actions; and to agree optimal dissolved oxygen levels for Macquarie Harbour.
Update: The Tasmanian EPA has undertaken a detailed review of historic dissolved oxygen levels within Macquarie Harbour and in association with last year’s 10% reduction in the scale of finfish farming under the EPA Director’s Total Permissible Dissolved Nitrogen Output (TPDNO) determination. Dissolved oxygen targets for Macquarie Harbour using data from 1993-2009 to define preferred conditions within the harbour in surface, mid, and bottom waters, across three different regions of the harbour are currently being finalised as a guideline for remediation work. It was noted that achievement of dissolved oxygen targets will be impeded by climate change because dissolved oxygen concentrations are negatively correlated with increases in temperature.
Hydrodynamics Working Group
Aim: to guide operations to achieve optimal environmental river flows for Maugean skate, including outlining possible modifications to river flows that are achievable over the next 6-18 months.
Update: Workshops were held in August and September 2023 to discuss reinstating and broadening the Macquarie Harbour Oxygen Process Model (CSIRO model), and to identify data required to inform any future requirement for modification of hydroelectric flows by Hydro Tasmania into Macquarie Harbour to allow more appropriate environmental flows for Maugean skate habitat protection.
The CSIRO model for Macquarie Harbour represents oxygen dynamics and interactions with river flows, ocean forcing at the boundary between the ocean and the harbour, and interaction with fish farm oxygen demands to inform ongoing sustainable management of the harbour and to minimise the potentially harmful impacts of human activities on water quality. The model can integrate and provide insights into how the harbour might respond to management scenarios.
The Bureau of Meteorology and Hydro Tasmania discussed products/data that may be useful to enable the CSIRO model to provide insights about the harbour and conditions for potential recharge events.
Engagement
A component of the work of the Recovery Team is engagement with stakeholders, the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and the general public. The Recovery Team noted recent appointment of a social scientist who has familiarity with the west coast community to be part of the Recovery Team and support planning for engagement.
Road Map
A draft road map of actions was discussed and will be finalised in the next two weeks to guide and illustrate the immediate work of the Recovery Team.
Conservation Action Plan
NRE Tas discussed the draft Conservation Action Plan which will set out a conservation planning framework to support recovery of the Maugean Skate. The Action Plan will ensure collective alignment of goals, coordination of priority activities, and identify the resources needed for critical research and management actions.
EPBC Act Listing Assessment
The Maugean skate is included on the 2023 Finalised Priority Assessment List under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water outlined the timeline for the assessment and provided a factsheet on associated EPBC Act processes.
Membership
The Chair noted the out-of-session endorsement of inclusion of a social scientist with specific knowledge of Macquarie Harbour and the west coast, a representative from Copper Mines Tasmania and an NRE Tas Aboriginal Cultural Fisheries Officer.
BACKGROUND
The National Recovery Team for the Maugean Skate was formed in July 2023. The Tasmanian endemic Maugean Skate (Zearaja maugeana) is listed as endangered under both Tasmania’s Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The species has also been included as a priority threatened species under the National Threatened Species Action Plan (2022-2032).
WHEN SALMON IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Plans to protect from extinction the 60-million-year-old Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour appear to have been stymied by the salmon industry.
In a communique issued after its second meeting, the Maugean Skate Recovery Team completely fails to even mention the salmon industry and its feedlots are a driving force behind the drastic decline of the skate, a relic of the dinosaurs, and the waterway’s health.
“Salmon Industry lobbyist, Luke Martin, yesterday warned the federal Environment minister “not a single fish” would be removed from Macquarie Harbour – clearly the industry is not prepared to face-up to its part in the looming disaster,” says TAMP spokesperson, Peter George
“In the Recovery Team’s communique today, there is not one word about salmon and the effluent from the feedlots which has so badly impacted Macquarie Harbour.
“Yet the science from IMAS and the Federal government’s own advisors is clear: the urgent priority before summer is to get the feedlots out of the waterway.
“Clearly the salmon industry’s malign influence has prevented wiser heads from even addressing the issue and that makes any effort to preserve the skate and restore Macquarie Harbour to good health a total failure.
“Perhaps it’s unsurprising that the foreign-owned salmon companies are driven more by profits than preserving Tasmania’s unique natural heritage.”
Media release – Australia Institute Tasmania, 13 October 2023
So-called ‘Recovery Team’ Ignores #1 Threat to Maugean Skate: Salmon Farming
The Communique released today by the National Recovery Team for the Maugean Skate is woefully inadequate and demonstrates the undue influence of the salmon industry, according to the Australia Institute Tasmania.
The Communique fails to mention the Australian Government Conservation Advice, released in September, which clearly identifies fish farming in Macquarie harbour as causing the main impact on the threatened Maugean skate.
The Conservation Advice says the highest priority action to protect the skate is to “eliminate or significantly reduce” the impacts of fish farming on dissolved oxygen. It says the fastest and simplest way to achieve this is to significantly reduce fish biomass. This is an urgent priority to be actioned before the summer of 2023/2024.
Key points
- The Communique fails to address several issues:
- It does not include the Conservation Action Plan, which appears to be further delayed, despite the federal government’s advice that urgent action is needed.
- Neither does it include any plans to eliminate or significantly reduce fish biomass in accordance with federal government advice. This is despite fish farming being recognised as the number one threat to the skate.
- There is no mention of the Australian Government’s Conservation Advice released on 8 September that clearly identifies fish farming in Macquarie harbour as causing the main impact on the threatened Maugean skate.
- A pilot program to test the viability of injecting oxygen into the harbour will commence prior to December (subject to permits and licences)
- All 10 licences for fish farms are due to expire on 30 November 2023
“This Communique confirms the undue influence the salmon industry has on the Tasmanian Government. Instead of responding to the Australian Government’s conservation advice, it ignores the number one threat to the endangered Maugean skate: salmon farming,” said Eloise Carr, Director, the Australia Institute Tasmania.
“The salmon industry is deceiving Tasmanians – the science is clear. The federal government agrees with scientists that the science is clear. The federal government’s advice is to remove fish biomass before this summer, yet this is completely ignored by the National Recovery Team for the Maugean Skate.
“We are in for a hot summer, which makes this all the more urgent. The so-called ‘Road Map’ has to address salmon farming. That means not renewing the licences when they expire at the end of November.
“The salmon industry continues to mislead Tasmanians by exaggerating their own importance. Publicly available data shows they employ far fewer people than they claim, while damaging other, far bigger employers like tourism.”
Media release – Neighbours of Fish Farming, 13 October 2023
3 months wasted while Maugean skate extinction looms – Communiqué gets “fail” mark
The team charged with planning the protection of the endangered Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour has issued a second communique that utterly fails to address the mostly urgent issues.
“It’s as if no one in the Skate Recovery Team has read the science, and are not aware of the urgent timeline.” says NOFF campaigner, Jess Coughlan.
“The science says the fastest and simplest way to restore Dissolved Oxygen levels is to significantly reduce the salmon industry’s feedlots in Macquarie Harbour as a priority and yet the team’s communique totally ignores this expert advice.”
“It seems the team has wasted three months when a marine heatwave that could drive the skate to extinction this summer makes action crucial – and it should be happening now.”
Federal Environment minister, Tanya Plibersek’s own scientific advisory body has recommended as an urgent priority “Eliminate or significantly reduce the impacts of salmonid aquaculture on dissolved oxygen concentrations. The fastest and simplest way to achieve this is by significantly reducing fish biomass and feeding rates.” The advices urges the action before the coming summer.
“Clearly the team is stymied by the salmon industry whose chief lobbyist, Luke Martin, warned yesterday that not one single fish would be removed from Macquarie Harbour,” says Ms Coughlan.
“The fact that Salmon Tasmania is attempting to control the narrative, by publicly stating that this (mechanical oxygenation) is the full solution, without a resolved plan from the recovery team indicates an aim for blatant capture of the process.”
NOFF says other measures such as breeding the 60-million-year old skate in captivity and an engineering solution of pumping oxygen into the water are stopgap measures that don’t address the fundamental issues, including restoration of final critical habitat.