Jungle Perch Fishery Rescue

[shayned]

Folks, who here would like the opportunity to visit a Queensland Impoundment and have the chance to tangle with a 3 kilo Jungle Perch, or on blustery windy day, drive up into the hinterland and match wits with a wiley, wild Jungely in a crystal clear mountain stream, even if you live in highly populated Brisvegas??

If you have answered yes to these questions, you can help make it happen.

Research into Jungle Perch is close to producing these results, for us, our kids and our grandkids but the researchers need help. They have achieved amazing advances so far but require a little more funding to get over the line. By sending an email showing our support we can help them, help us.

I will add an email address to this message for you to show your support and if you would like the full story please read the next couple of posts and I will cover off on what has been achieved, what could be and what needs to be done to finish this project.

Apologies to Michael and his team if I haven't recalled the details of his presentation with 100% accuracy and leave out some of what has been achieved.

[shayned]

Last Tuesday night, I was fortunate enough to attend a fish stocking association meeting, where Michael Hutchison gave a presentation on the work completed so far by the Bribie Island Research Division on a project aimed at the mighty Jungle Perch.

As most of us are aware, the Jungle Perch used to be able to be found in most streams along the Queensland coastline and in years gone by, was a favourite target species for fresh water anglers in the know. Unfortunately pollution, barriers across water ways and destruction of habitat has nearly done this iconic species in and has been causing local extinctions up and down the Queensland Coastline.

A few years ago Michael and his team put together a plan to do two things, firstly to ensure the survival and reintroduction of the species to its historical range; secondly to develop the ability to stock the species in impoundments as another draw card for Queensland’s fabulous fresh water fisheries. With a great deal of support the team managed to secure 2 years of funding to begin research on a species of which very little was known and also attempt to meet the long term goals of the project. Given the level of knowledge available at that time it was a very ambitious attempt.

Amazingly though, in two years, the scientists working on the project have managed to complete an absolutely stunning amount of work on this species, ticking off many milestones and have come tantalisingly close to achieving the projects aims.

Herein lies the problem, the funding has finished and the group has to apply for more to complete the project and this is in no way assured of succeeding. As anglers we can fortunately influence the outcome of this situation by writing a short email supporting the application for sufficient funds to complete this important project. Simply address, the email To Whom It May Concern and write a short message urging the recipient to give whatever support is necessary to allow the completion of the Jungle Perch project.

Next topic: What has been achieved so far.

[shayned]

What has been achieved.

Initially the team had to identify where Jungle Perch used to exist, this involved researching historical documents and interviewing anglers to gain ancedotal evidence. The result of this showed Jungle Perch used to exist as far south as the Richmond River in NSW. Also that not every creek and river held the species but as a result the team could identify the necessary components needed for a successful long term environment to suit Jungle Perch. It also highlighted just how many local populations have been lost to us.

[shayned]

What has been achieved (2)

During the collection of this information, Queensland Anglers, helped to identify remnant populations, which the team visited and took genetic and hormonal samples without harming these fragile populations. Importantly this data helped to show that there are three distinct populations in Queensland, not unlike Barra with Southern and Northern Populations whereby the fish are similar but don't survive very well when translocated between areas. This means if we don't act now to save the SEQ population than the chance of using a Cairns based fish to re establish a southern population is not likely to be very successful.

This stage of research also highlighted how fragile the southern populations are, one of the most successful remnant populations only has approx. 200 adult fish remaining. It isn't hard to imagine how easy it would be for this largest population to be destroyed.

[shayned]

What has been achieved (3)

The team has collected, given time to acclimate to captivity and successfully held breeding populations of all three strains of the population for two breeding seasons. Very importantly they have worked out how to collect breeding populations without threatening fragile wild groups, making commercial propagation a real possibility for the future and helps ensure the possibility of stocking our impoundments. (Just quietly 600gm wild fish held in captivity are already approaching 1.5kg suggesting Jungle Perch stocked into the food rich impoundment environments will hit the magic 3kg mark, some found in PNG wild environs weigh 5kg!!!)

What also has been done is the successful interpreting of genetic results along with behaviours to show how each strain has developed reproductive techniques to suit their climate and locality. This work effectively took up the first breeding season but now it is known that each strain requires a different salinity level to successfully reproduce. The end result of this work was shown in the second breeding season where almost 900,000 viable fertilised eggs were produced in a single session, proving again that the species is suitable for commercial production and stocking impoundments, initially only small batches of eggs could be fertilised and this process could never be cost effective.

[shayned]

What has been achieved (4)

Just achieving fertilization in an artificial environment is a great achievement, the unfertilized eggs are only about .3 of a mm and upon fertilization are only about .7 of a mm. When hatched these eggs produce fry which are very small, particularly when compared with current species which are produced for stocking such as Bass, Barra, Silvers and Goldens.

This leads to the bottle neck facing the researchers, they can collect brood stock, look after it and produce commercial quantities of fry, but onfeeding these fry to a size where they will survive is the challenge facing the project. As of right now the fry will last until day 6 before dying, with all the lead up work, the team only had time to trial 6 different approaches to ensuring survival of fry 'til the stage they are large enough for release. There is a great plan prepared to solve this problem but without our support it won't happen and this will be just another case of what could have been. Please help, it could be the next trial which solves this problem and saves this important state wide fishery.

[shayned]

Lastly, for the most part money for research has already been allocated, this money comes from you and me. This is a chance for us average fishos to have a say in how it is spent.

[shayned]

Send to jungleperch@sweetwaterfishing.com.au

Type in Subject Line: Jungle Perch Support

Don't change the subject line of the email or spam filters will grab it.

Cheers,

Fitzy..

[Angus]

Would I be keen to tackle a 3kg Jungle Perch? Are you serious?

Email being sent.

Angus

[yoyo]

How much money do they want/need ?

[fishingnut]

From memory they spent about 120000 on wages for the year

[katfish]

hand feed jungle perch in Eli ck on Frazer island using those pesky march flies. just swat them when they land on you, then chuck em in the water off the walkway platform up the end. that was a couple of years ago, they should still be there, along with the long finned eels.

[jon]

email sent, i hope you succed with the funding mate

[rayke1938]

This is really something worthwhile supporting even if you are not into freshwater fishing.Cheers

Ray

[jeff f]

done

come on everyone this is worthwile and east to get behind

[tugger]

message sent

with our help the future of these fish can be secured for us and our kids

mark

[Gad]

Email sent

Lets all get on this,like Angus,I`d like to catch a 3kg JP and I`m sure my grandkids would too

[shayned]

Hi Angus,

I'm pushing for time and didn't get a chance to talk with you about this, but as always your willingness to help and support worthwhile projects never ceases to amaze me. Proud to call you a friend.

Shayne

[rayke1938]

Copy of email that I just received from member shayned who cannot remember his password.

It is gratifying that sometimes we can make a difference.

Cheers

Ray

rayke1938@yahoo.com.au

Message flagged

Wednesday, 4 July 2012 6:48 PM

Hi Ray,

I can’t remember my password for Brisfish, I was hoping you might post the attached press release on the old thread regarding Jungle perch research and thank everyone who took the time to email letters of support for Hutcho’s team.

Breeding the next generation of jungle perch

Jungle perch could soon be making a comeback in Queensland waters with the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) receiving $483,000 in funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation to accelerate fingerling production.

Principal fisheries biologist Michael Hutchison said there was a lot of demand from fishers for jungle perch, which had become very scarce in the southern half of Queensland.

“In many areas the environmental causes behind this disappearance (including barriers to migration) have now been addressed, so we have an opportunity to reintroduce jungle perch to rivers in South-eastern Queensland and in the Mackay-Whitsunday region,†he said.

“To do that, we need to produce jungle perch fingerlings and this is where our research comes in.

“We have been able to successfully spawn jungle perch in the past, but getting the tiny larvae to feed has been problematic.

“This newly-funded work at the Bribie Island Research Centre will focus on nutrition of adult fish to improve egg and larval quality, tank rearing conditions and appropriate larval feeds to solve this problem.

“The fingerlings produced will be stocked into suitable river habitats to re-establish jungle perch fisheries where they used to occur. The survival of stocked fingerlings will be monitored to help improve future stocking success.

“It is also proposed that successful fingerling production techniques are passed on to private hatcheries.â€

Jungle perch are an iconic angling fish reaching more than 3kg in weight. Their habitat includes coastal rivers and streams from Cape York to Northern New South Wales. They spend most of their life in freshwater but migrate to salt water to spawn.

DAFF is the lead agency in this work and is partnered by James Cook University and the Freshwater Fishing and Stocking Association of Queensland. The project funding is provided by the Commonwealth Government Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.

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Media: Laura McDonald 3224 8837

Thanks very much Shayne Dumma