Premier Mark McGowan and Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly have joined Recfishwest at Harvey Dam for a marron stocking event, announcing a trial stocking program that will see 300,000 marron released into South West dams in the next three years.
The trial stocking program is one of a suite of programs given the green light as part of the latest Recreational Fishing Initiatives Fund (RFIF), funded by our fishing licence fees, to improve recfishing in WA.
WATCH: See all the action from the Harvey Dam announcement here
Marron is unique to WA and fishing for it is a hugely popular pastime in the South West, with great potential to not just future-proof it, but open it up even more to the community, which is what this project aims to explore.
One of the program’s objectives is to assess the viability of introducing two million juvenile marron over a five-year period – imagine how good that would be for the 10,000 licensed marron fishers.
With Premier McGowan publicly throwing his weight behind this great project, it’s a big step toward the dream we share with the community to give recfishers and families the opportunity to go marroning every weekend and every school holiday.
It’s also another example of Government recognising the value of recfishing to the WA community and subsequently investing our licence fees in improving and increasing our fishing opportunities.
It comes on the back of a fantastic few months that have seen 200,000 more barra released into Lake Kununurra, the announcement of a trial three-year national FADs network program and a new artificial reef to be deployed off Carnarvon, which is another project to be funded from this RFIF round.
There are also a bunch of other great projects announced as part of this RFIF round including a Salmon Spectacular fishing comp and festival this autumn Recfishwest is running, the Seeds for Snapper Cockburn Sound seagrass restoration project.
READ MORE ABOUT PROJECTS FUNDED IN THE LATEST RFIF ROUND
It’s all stacking up for a really exciting 2020 – and we’re sure you like us can’t wait to see what the next 12 months hold.
Rest assured, we will continue to throw ourselves into making more recfishing dreams for our community turn into reality – just watch this space!
