Anglers banned from catching iconic Aussie fish after numbers plummet
The race is on to "crack the code" and breed Macquarie perch in high numbers before they're wiped out.
Rivers in the Murray Darling Basin ran black with spawning Macquarie perch in the 1920s, but a century on the Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) is warning that the species is in serious trouble and could be extinct in just five years.
Explaining the reason for the total ban on catching the species, CEO Travis Dowling told Yahoo News Australia the new protections are designed to buy time while researchers try to “crack the code” to successfully breed them in high numbers in captivity, so their population can be boosted.
“Until we can get to a point, they're going to be on that precipice of becoming extinct,” he said.
Macquarie perch the 'Tasmanian tiger of freshwater fish'
With the species listed as endangered and believed to number just a few thousand, a bag limit of one fish had previously been set in two of the remaining locations where it had been found — Dartmouth Dam and Upper Coliban Reservoir. Now, catching any number of the fish is prohibited.
With the species listed as endangered and believed to number just a few thousand, a bag limit of one fish had previously been set in two of the remaining locations where it had been found — Dartmouth Dam and Upper Coliban Reservoir. ow, catching any number of the fish is prohibited. they’re harvested we are stepping closer to extinction.
“They’re the Tasmanian tiger of large body freshwater fish in the Murray Darling Basin. Unless we can crack this code (of how to breed them) we think they’ll be extinct… totally extinct.”
Why Macquarie perch are facing extinction
The demise of the Macquarie perch is a sad reflection of the damage done to Australia’s wild spaces since white settlement.
At the beginning of the last century, people in the Murray Darling Basin once feasted heavily on the native fish as well as introduced rabbits. But in the 1960s and 1970s, things started to go south for the Macquarie perch as dams were built and predatory species were introduced that could out-compete them like European carp and redfin (European perch).
While a redfin can breed three times a year, laying 2 million eggs each time, the Macquarie perch does so just once a year and only lays around 200,000 eggs.
Macquarie perch have survived in upland areas of water that redfin and carp have been unable to penetrate. For years, Dartmouth Dam has been one of the last remaining strongholds for the species, but over the last two years redfin have been caught there, amping up concerns.
Because Macquarie perch require strong riparian habitat around river banks to thrive, authorities have been working with landholders to fence out cattle. While this program is an essential component of the species’ protection, Dowling describes it as “literally like putting Band-aids on the Titanic” unless they can establish large-scale breeding the fish will “continue to fade away”.
$5 million plan to save Macquarie Perch
By partnering with Deakin University, Melbourne Aquarium and NSW Fisheries, the VFA is hoping to replicate the success it had in working out how to breed Murray cod and golden perch in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
To do this, the agency has built a $5 million hatchery at Snobs Creek near Eildon that is dedicated to breeding Macquarie Perch. “What we’re trying to do is get as many people with left-field thinking together to work out what in the past has prevented us from being able to breed them successfully,” Dowling said. “Is there something with the water temperature, is it the food we’re providing, what is it that’s holding us back?”
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