Posts
By Sally Dakis
The Tasmanian abalone industry is breathing a sigh of relief, with news that many restrictions on abalone movement have been lifted.Controls on the movement of the fish were introduced as a means of limiting any potential spread of the deadly ganglio neuritis virus, which had been discovered in 3 fish in an abalone processing plant, and one fish in the wild.Since then, no futher positive detections have been found in any of the 1600 tests taken.Restrictions on the movement of abalone from parts of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel will remain, as will a ban on imported abalone, and the feeding of abalone guts as bait.Chairman of Tasmania's Abalone Council Dean Lisson says it's good news that there's no evidence of the disease in the wild, but the industry remains on high alert."We haven't covered every single bay or reef around Tasmania's 5,000 km coastline so there is still a small chance there could be a population of abalone, somewhere, that have been affected by this."Mr Lisson expects further changes to abalone fishing and farming management in Tasmania, including effluent treatment, in the future. "One of the things we will have to address is the issue of outfall pipes from processing facilities from farms" he said."A disease in a farm or indeed if it ever happened in a processing facility that empties directly into the ocean is a very effective way to spread it, and it's one of the high areas of risk that we've identified that needs to be addressed."
In this report: Dean Lisson, Tasmania's Abalone Council
The Tasmanian abalone industry is breathing a sigh of relief, with news that many restrictions on abalone movement have been lifted.Controls on the movement of the fish were introduced as a means of limiting any potential spread of the deadly ganglio neuritis virus, which had been discovered in 3 fish in an abalone processing plant, and one fish in the wild.Since then, no futher positive detections have been found in any of the 1600 tests taken.Restrictions on the movement of abalone from parts of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel will remain, as will a ban on imported abalone, and the feeding of abalone guts as bait.Chairman of Tasmania's Abalone Council Dean Lisson says it's good news that there's no evidence of the disease in the wild, but the industry remains on high alert."We haven't covered every single bay or reef around Tasmania's 5,000 km coastline so there is still a small chance there could be a population of abalone, somewhere, that have been affected by this."Mr Lisson expects further changes to abalone fishing and farming management in Tasmania, including effluent treatment, in the future. "One of the things we will have to address is the issue of outfall pipes from processing facilities from farms" he said."A disease in a farm or indeed if it ever happened in a processing facility that empties directly into the ocean is a very effective way to spread it, and it's one of the high areas of risk that we've identified that needs to be addressed."
In this report: Dean Lisson, Tasmania's Abalone Council
No comments:
Post a Comment