Tag: fish release

Bumper Snapper Guardians 2023 kicks off ‘super-stocking’ week

What an awesome turn-out for Snapper Guardians 2023 – with the biggest crowd in the event’s history coming down to help us release juvenile pink snapper into Cockburn Sound!  

What’s more it kicked off a ‘super-stocking’ week which has seen 40,000 juvenile pink snapper and 15,000 yellowtail king fish released into metro waters in less than seven days!  

With COVID unfortunately disrupting the community attendance at the event in 2021 and 2022, Recfishwest was delighted to see hundreds of fishing families turn up to roll up their sleeves and help release 5,000 juvenile pinkies to show how much they value this iconic species, the Sound and the fantastic fishing experiences it supports on Perth’s doorstep.  

A big Recfishwest thanks to the 400+ attendees that helped us release 5,000 juvenile pink snapper into Cockburn Sound for Snapper Guardians 2023!

CHECK OUT OUR LIVE FACEBOOK FEED FROM THIS YEAR’S SNAPPER GUARDIANS

This was followed by another 35,000 pink snapper released between Fremantle Sailing Club and the Cockburn Power Boats Club earlier this week, while 15,000 yellowtail kingfish were also released on Wedneday between the same locations to spice up future fishing experiences in metro waters.  

“The fantastic response we had to Snapper Guardians 2023 shows the community’s care and passion for Cockburn Sound and the fantastic, safe, accessible fishery it supports is stronger than ever before,” said CEO Dr Andrew Rowland. “A big shout out to everyone who came down from the community to support this year’s event.” 

“Fishing is always better when the fish are biting and we don’t just want to see sustainable fisheries – we want abundant ones. That’s why it’s great to see the Government’s commitment to fish stocking initiatives like the pink snapper and yellowtail kingfish programs. 

Check out the behind-the-scenes footage from the DPIRD Fremantle hatchery and the kingie cannon firing new yellowtail kingfish into their new home on the YouTube link below! 

“We want to see more of this in the future and a well-developed scientific monitoring program that can give us a better understanding of the effectiveness and potential scalability of these popular iniativies,” added Andrew.  

A big Recfishwest shout out also to the team from DPIRD’s Fremantle hatchery, who collected the pink snapper eggs in early November of 2022, hatched and reared the pinkies in their aquaculture tanks through the most vulnerable stage of their lives, before transporting the 90-day-old fish down to Jervoise Bay, Woodman Point for release into their new home.  

The team at DPIRD’s Fremantle hatchery collected the pink snapper eggs back in November of 2022, hatched and reared them until they reached 90-days-of-age and transported 5,000 down to Cockburn Sound for release during Snapper Guardians!

We would also like to thank our community fish stocking partners Daiwa, for helping us make this event possible.  

Rest assured, with the State Government promising more funding and support for future stocking events such as Snapper Guardians, we will ensure this great event continues for many years to come and becomes even bigger and better.  

Were you one of the Snapper Guardians who rolled up your sleeves over the weekend? Check out some of the action and big smiles from our latest event below and thank you to all attendees who put on the bathers and snorkels to help make the 2023 Snapper Guardians event one for the ages.  

Nine years and 2,000km later – 12 breeding barra finally return to Kununurra

It’s a fish journey that gives Finding Nemo a run for its money.

One of the original captors from 2013, Ben Little, who previously worked at the hatchery.

Rewind to 2013 in the East Kimberley Ord River in Kununurra, where 12 barramundi were caught, placed in a specially adapted trailer and transported over 1,000km north-east to North Regional TAFE’s Aquaculture Centre in Broome.

Over the past nine years, they grew from around 50cm in length to about one metre, changed from male to female and spawned almost a quarter of a million baby barra between them.

Last Friday, those original 12 barramundi made the 1,000 km ‘return-journey’ and were released into Lake Kununurra, where they will see out the rest of their years.

“It was so good seeing these animals go full circle and return to where they’re from,” said Milton Williams, North Regional TAFE Senior Aquaculture Technician, who has worked at the centre for the last 15 years and oversaw the release operation of these magical fish.

“Having seen them grow and do their bit spawning, it was so rewarding watching them swim off into their wild habitat.”

It is a testament to the stocking program run by the North Regional TAFE in Broome and the local Lake Kununurra Barramundi Stocking Group, which has seen more than one million barramundi released into its waterways since 2013.

Find out more about the stocking program and fishery on Lake Kununurra here.

Breeding barra for a Kimberley “Barradise”

Lake Kununurra has since become a world-class hotspot for anglers chasing one-metre giants in ‘barra-dise’. According to a 2020 report conducted on the restocking program, the economic value of barramundi fishing to the region is already $7.6 million per year.

Milton Williams, Senior Aquaculture Technician at North Regional TAFE preparing a barra for the journey. His daughter, Ella, also helped out in a work experience capacity.

To ensure the fish are healthy in the centre and contribute to the growing species abundance, their diet includes fresh “human-grade” seafood including mullet, whiting, prawns, squid and pilchards.

As barramundi are protandrous hermaphrodites, they also change sex from male to female once reaching five to six-years-of-age at around the 90cm mark.

Milton said the female fish have produced eggs consistently well over the last few years, whereas the males might have been suffering from a little ‘performance anxiety.’

“The females have spawned consistently well, it’s the males we have trouble with,” said Milton. “They don’t always fire and we rarely have them all in spawning condition at once – usually it’s about half of them. Between these fish they have successfully contributed 214,000 barra fingerlings that have been transported and released in the lake.”

For their 12–14-hour journey back to Lake Kununurra, the fish were purged so none of their waste impacted on the pH of the water, which can be lethal to the fish. The ratio of fish to water in the oxygenated transportation tanks was 80kg of fish to 800L of water.

Once at the lakeside, water was slowly pumped through the tank to allow the fish to acclimatise and “osmoregulate” from the saline water in which they were kept in at the hatchery and in the transportation tanks to the freshwater environment of the lake, as well as adapting to temperature changes.

A special fishery being delivered by a strong partnership

Recfishwest CEO Dr Andrew Rowland commented, “It’s great to see these fish being treated with the respect they deserve being released back into their natural habitat after contributing to this great program.

“Thanks to fish like this and the fantastic efforts of North Regional TAFE, the local Lake Kununurra Barramundi Stocking Group and the support of the State Government, the lake has flourished into a special fishery in a beautiful part of the world. Where else do you get the chance to catch metre-long barra in such a safe and accessible setting?”

The team from North Regional TAFE and Lake Kununurra Barramundi Stocking Group members (left), and Brad Pasfield releasing a fish back into its native habitat.

 

Tagged barra caught seven years after original release in Roebuck Bay

A recent capture of a tagged barra in Dampier Creek near Broome has shown stocking programs can and do pay long-term fishing dividends.

Barramundi being released back in 2012

Steve Chambers from Tackle World Broome recently reported one of his customers had caught a 76cm-long tagged barramundi in Dampier Creek.

The barra was later identified as a stocked fish from a batch of 1,000 barra released in Dampier Creek, Roebuck Bay in 2012 – as part of a stocking program funded by one of our Community Grants – click here for more info about community grants.

At the time of its release on 16 August 2012,  the fish – ‘barra no.1873’ – measured 39.5cm.

It’s great to see this fish, reared by the Broome Aquaculture Centre of Kimberley TAFE, being caught and showing that the released fish are still out there and continuing to provide fishing experiences.

The fish, before their release, were screened for their high health status and were expected to have a great survival rate.

While the fish appears to have been relatively slow-growing, the recapture reflects how much of a long-term investment stocked fish like these are providing benefits to the fishing community a number of years later.

Barramundi being released back in 2012