SE QLD Jungle Perch Fishery Rescue

[AFO]

** This thread discusses the content article: SE QLD Jungle Perch Fishery Rescue **

SE QLD Jungle Perch Fishery Rescue

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 wily, wild Jungle Perch in a crystal clear mountain stream, even if you live in highly populated Brisbane?

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.

To get on board and support this worthwhile venture please send an email to the following with a few words of support.

Send to jungleperch@sweetwaterfishing.com.au

Type in Subject Line: Jungle Perch Support

Please continue reading for more info on the status of this project so far…

Recently 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.

Initially the team had to identify where Jungle Perch used to exist, this involved researching historical documents and interviewing anglers to gain anecdotal 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.

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.

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.

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.

[Angus]

Really interesting stuff Shayne.

Really look forward to hearing more and yes, my email is sent.

Such a cool fish would love to see more progress here.

For those that think this sort of thing is a waste of time, thanks to his hard efforts Shayne has recently secured a further 50k for the stocking of Lake K, the Stanly River and Caboolture Weir. Thats a lot of fingerlings!

This grant would simply NOT EXIST without Shayne and likeminded anglers efforts. So lets not be complacent. Lets show the support these hard working induviduals deserve. It only takes 1 minute of your time after all.

Angus

[crazywalrus]

Hi guys

I have looked through the QDPI bag limits pdf and I can not see Jungle Perch there. I would think they should be especially in these southern areas where the populations are so fragile. Have I missed something here?

Cheers Ted

[Angus]

crazywalrus wrote:

Hi guys

I have looked through the QDPI bag limits pdf and I can not see Jungle Perch there. I would think they should be especially in these southern areas where the populations are so fragile. Have I missed something here?

Cheers Ted

Ill ask Shayne about that mate.

It could honestly be because they are considered essentially extinct down here.

Until I read this research, and this lead me to read a few other reports as well, I thought I would have to travel a fair way north to even have a crack at this species.

Angus

[kriso]

all done , for those unable to come up with the words feel free to copy and paste mine

To Whom it may concern,

As a avid angler and someone who strongly supports the the magic that local fish stocking groups provide to our fresh water fishing environments I ask you to consider providing more funding into the Jungle perch project, The people involved have achieved so much in gathering information to bring our local waterways back to what they used too and that you would have to be a down right bum to pull the pin now, The thoughts of losing this already close to extinct species for good in south east queensland would be a absolute waste knowing that with a few more dollars this magical species could be here for generations to come.

I thank you for your time and know with a quick look at what has been achieved so far you will make the right decision

Regards

[elops]

crazywalrus wrote:

Hi guys

I have looked through the QDPI bag limits pdf and I can not see Jungle Perch there. I would think they should be especially in these southern areas where the populations are so fragile. Have I missed something here?

Cheers Ted

Ted

Jungle Perch all possession limit 1 maximum size 35 cm

cheers

Steve

[Angus]

elops wrote:

crazywalrus wrote:

Hi guys

I have looked through the QDPI bag limits pdf and I can not see Jungle Perch there. I would think they should be especially in these southern areas where the populations are so fragile. Have I missed something here?

Cheers Ted

Ted

Jungle Perch all possession limit 1 maximum size 35 cm

cheers

Steve

Excellent thanks elops.

Id say if you ever caught one in SE QLD however unlikely maybe let him go anyway!

Angus

[crazywalrus]

Thanks Steve - If I was lucky enough to catch one it would be catch and release. I was just concerned because I could not see it in there. After hearing the DPI talk and hearing how few adults there are in some of these rivers I would think that it should be a no take species in SEQLD.

[Swagger]

http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/extra/pdf/far/jpreportpilot.pdf

Interesting reading and email sent

[mongrel jack]

This project is well worth everyone getting behind - past success proves it isn't a waste of time. Kriso's words were so inspiring i couldn't better them so took his advice and did the cut and paste :laugh:

[wesfish]

has there been any more news on the success of breeding these great fish? have they been able to over come the problem? i was just watching an info show for kids and it shows that the damsel fish fry depends on the parents for the mucus that covers their body for the first stage of their life. it just made me think and wonder if this might be a thought for the jp? do they need the parents in the same tanks as the fry for the first stages? i dont know crap about breeding fish but seeing the info triggered a thought to maybe the missing link. they might be family orientated fish?

i so hope they get the funding to continue their great work!

[Jords]

"Once found all down the Queensland coast now restricted to isolated pockets north of Townsville."

Taken from the DPI website, apparently the believe they arent around down here anyway...

That said, arent they the fish in Eli Creek on Fraser?

I just though i remembered my uncle telling me thats what they were many years ago, from memory they were there in plague proportions

[Perky]

EDIT: Just saw the date on the first post? Are they still taking emails on this matter, because i would love to get behind this cause.?

[crazywalrus]

"Once found all down the Queensland coast now restricted to isolated pockets north of Townsville."

Taken from the DPI website, apparently the believe they arent around down here anyway...

That said, arent they the fish in Eli Creek on Fraser?

I just though i remembered my uncle telling me thats what they were many years ago, from memory they were there in plague proportions

yeas they are the ones at Eli Creek. That is where they got some of their breeding stock for the study. There are some isolated small populations in the south east however they are limited because not a lot of the creeks and river systems here can support them because of obstacles for them such as weirs and barrages. they need to go to the slat like other local fish to breed but they can not persist in salt water. Thus this is why the obstacles cause so much problems for them.

[roobs]

I would be interested to read any environmental impact studies before advocating their release. I imagine they would occupy a similar ecological niche to Australian Bass in the areas around brisbane. Would the two species be stocked conjointly? If so what studies have been done with the two species co-existing? Also of interest would be the effects on crustaceans/rainbow fish and so forth, invertabrates. Adding what would essentially be a top-order predator into local streams may change the ecology drastically. For instance, if the Perch displaced Bass, but did not eat juvenile carp (this is just an example, please forgive me if it is an inaccurate paralell) there could be a change in the ecosystem. I am sure that this has been thought out, but i just wanted to throw another opinion into the mix.

[elops]

The Jungle Perch that this project is studying and hopes to restore are the Southern Subspecies of Kuhlia rupestris

An enviromental impact study on an extirpated near extinct species in their home range would be pointless.

[roobs]

@Elops- I certainly have always admired your knowledge on such matters and hope that i'm not being obtuse! I have tried to find the pilot study done by the DPI in 2002 by (Hutchison, Simpson Elizur, Willett, Collins- sorry if i missed you) but am having trouble finding it. I certainly support any pro-active conservation measures.

[Surfingant]

An article in the latest QFM says that the project has ceased and will not continue unless further funding is forthcoming. The project has not been given priority.

[Luc53]

It's a project that rec fishers are keen on but not FQ so no funding.

Luc

[yoyo]

You gyus should see the JP's up at Paronella Park in NQ and also up at Mossman Gorge. They are friggin HUGE ! Both No-Fish areas though.....

I've caught smaller ones in the wild down in the Tully river, they went pretty hard for their size, so a 3kg+ fish would be a real handful on light gear !

[elops]

@Elops- I certainly have always admired your knowledge on such matters and hope that i'm not being obtuse! I have tried to find the pilot study done by the DPI in 2002 by (Hutchison, Simpson Elizur, Willett, Collins- sorry if i missed you) but am having trouble finding it. I certainly support any pro-active conservation measures.

The paper you quoted is no longer freely available.

Neither is Hutchison et al Restoring Jungle Perch Stocks : Reasearch and Action Plan.

There are only 2 other published works on K. rupestris

Hogan AE, Nicholson JC (1987)

Peters MB, Ovenden JR et al (2009)

All are I think available at a cost from Wiley if you do not have access.