Fingerlings cast into the lake
Jan 29, 2010
Wriggling and sliding down a plastic tube, 10,000 Murray Cod fingerlings took up residence in Gungahlin Pond last week.The fish were the first released in this year’s round of the government’s regular fish restocking.
Mark Jekabsons, an aquatic ecologist with the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, said the fish released this year would be ready to catch in about three years time. And it is in the interests of keeping up the population of these fully grown, legally catchable fish, that the Canberra Fisherman’s Club helps fund the restocking program.
Club president Greg Davis said the money to help came from the annual Carp Out fundraiser. “There’s many reasons (we give funds); one is to help enhance the recreational fishing for our members and the community with the native fish and also, to some extent, help keep the carp and redfin down,” he said.
The government will also release Golden perch into Yerrabi Pond, Lake Ginninderra and Lake Tuggeranong this year. Lake Burley Griffin is stocked by the National Capital Authority when it has enough funds.
Mr Jekabsons said they tried to release the fingerlings, or baby fish, in areas that were sheltered so not too many of them were eaten by birds and other wildlife. He said regular monitoring of the waterways where the fish had been released showed there was a good survival rate. The government has run its first fish stocking program since the mid-1990s, releasing more than a million fish into urban lakes in that time.
Source: The Northside Chronicle – 19 January 2010.
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