Media release – Senator Anne Urquhart, Chief Government Whip in the Senate, 20 December 2023
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT PARTNERS WITH SALMON INDUSTRY IN MACQUARIE HARBOUR OXYGENATION TRIAL
More than $7 million will be invested to stimulate oxygen levels in Macquarie Harbour to assist with the recovery of the endangered Maugean skate.
The Australian Government’s Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) and Tasmanian salmon producers have joined forces to fund this significant investment in the new research.
As part of the Albanese Government’s commitment to recovery of the Maugean skate, this investment funds Salmon Tasmania to undertake the oxygenation trial ($4.9m), and the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) ($2.3m) to lead an independent scientific evaluation of the trial to determine how effective oxygen remediation in Macquarie Harbour is in assisting with Maugean skate population recovery.
Tasmanian Senator Anne Urquhart said this important investment – funded by salmon producers and FRDC – will address an urgent action identified under the updated Conservation Advice for the Maugean skate.
“We all want to see the Maugean skate protected,” Senator Urquhart said. “We also want a sustainable salmon industry on the Harbour which supports good well-paid jobs, and makes an important contribution to the local and State economy”.
“And to do that we need to increase the levels of dissolved oxygen in Macquarie Harbour and examine the environmental response to the oxygenation.
“We also need to know how feasible and scalable the system is.
“The salmon industry has been clear that improving the health of Macquarie Harbour is in everyone’s interest, and I congratulate them on stepping up to support this important trial.”
“It is essential solid science underpins any action to improve water quality and the Macquarie Harbour environment.
“If proved successful, this technology used at scale has the potential to make a significant contribution to the improvement of oxygen levels in the harbour and the potential conservation of the Maugean skate.”
An ex-navy bunker barge named Wombat,operated by Salmon Tasmania, will be fitted with a large oxygen generator and seawater pumps.
These pumps will bring seawater up from 20m deep in Macquarie Harbour.
Once on board the barge, this water will be injected with highly concentrated micro and nano bubbles of oxygen, before this oxygenated – or ‘super-saturated’ – water is released back into the harbour at depth (30-40m).
During the pilot trial, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) scientists will be carrying out independent assessments on the efficacy of the oxygenation system, which will directly inform conservation planning for the skate.
“This will inform the capacity to offset the oxygen drawdown of individual leases and the total oxygen drawdown of salmonid aquaculture in the harbour. It will also determine the capacity of the oxygenation injection system to target oxygen remediation of target areas and habitats,” IMAS researcher, Associate Professor Jeff Ross said.
“Ultimately, the trial will be pivotal in understanding the role mechanical oxygenation of bottom and mid waters might play amongst other measures in remediating oxygen levels more broadly across the harbour,” he said.
This independent assessment of the oxygenation system by IMAS aims to ensure community confidence in the trial results.
This innovative trial builds on important previous research undertaken that informed the vulnerability assessment for Maugean skate funded by FRDC and the Australian Government in partnership with IMAS.
Statement – Neighbours of Fish Farming, 21 December 2023
NOFF deplores salmon subsidies In Macquarie Harbour
NOFF is astonished by a statement issued by Tasmanian senator, Anne Urquhart today that the Tasmanian salmon industry is receiving millions of dollars in subsidies in an effort to restore Macquarie Harbour, despite being the major cause of the collapse of the waterway’s health.
Senator Urquart’s statement reads in part: this investment funds Salmon Tasmania to undertake the oxygenation trial ($4.9m), and the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) ($2.3m) to lead an independent scientific evaluation of the trial to determine how effective oxygen remediation in Macquarie Harbour is in assisting with Maugean skate population recovery. (See below for full statement)
Salmon Tasmania’s lobbyist, Luke Martin, claims the industry is contributing $4.9million from a total of $11million.
NOFF president, Peter George says: “The public has a right to know just how much of their taxes are being ploughed into cleaning up the salmon industry’s mess.
“The amount is somewhere between $2.3million and $11million according to various industry and government announcements.
“It’s extraordinary that any public funds at all are being spent to subsidise the culprits who damaged the harbour’s health in the first place, driving the 60-million-year-old Maugean skate to the brink of extinction.
“What a Christmas present for the industry lobby group, Salmon Tasmania and its overseas owners whose spokesperson, Luke Martin, has sworn they will ‘not concede one single fish or one single job’ towards saving the skate or the harbour.”
The news comes on the same day Threatened Species Commissioner, Dr Fiona Fraser, acknowledged Macquarie Harbour “is now significantly degraded largely due to salmonid aquaculture” in a letter to former senator Bob Brown.
“Federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, should be conducting an urgent review of the science that allowed salmon industry expansion more than a decade ago, rather than dragging her feet with the drawn-out, months long review currently underway.”
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 21 December 2023
Strahan Maugean Skate Centre has ‘benefits for West Coast’ – Canberra.
The Federal Government is aware of the benefits of a Maugean Skate Centre being built at Strahan and the idea remains open, according to a letter Bob Brown has received from Canberra.
Brown wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Tanya Plibersek, to promote the concept of federal money allocated for the skate’s rescue from extinction being extended to build a Maugean Skate Centre at Strahan to give visitors to the west coast the experience of seeing what has been dubbed ‘the thylacine of the sea’.
See the attached letter from Dr Fiona Fraser, the Threatened Species Commissioner.
“Complementing Sea Horse World at Beauty Point, the Maugean Skate Centre could include a large range of living marine wonders from Tasmania’s west coast, while highlighting the rare and ancient Maugean skate which is found in Macquarie Harbour and nowhere else in the world,” Bob Brown said today.
