Tag Archives: Ballina Fishermen’s Co-operative
Northern NSW floods trigger mass fish kill with hundreds of thousands lining riverbanks, beaches
Fishermen have lost homes to the floods, nets and traps have been swept away, and now their livelihood is washing up dead on riverbanks and beaches along the New South Wales North Coast. Day by day the industry is counting the cost, financial and emotional, as the flooding disaster turns into an ecological one. “We’ve got juvenile fish, we’ve got big fish, we’ve got all the major species. So we’ve got sea mullet, bream, flathead, whiting, and then all the small fish, we’ve got toadfish, all sorts of things,” The majority of suppliers to the Ballina Fishermen’s Co-operative rely on the river, whether they fish out of it or at sea. >click to read< 13:30
Drones and high-tech cameras used to catch illegal crabbing activity in New South Wales
More than 460 crabbing offences have been detected by the NSW Department of Primary Industries during the six-month Operation Portunus. The 60 officers involved used drones and long-range surveillance cameras to locate illegal traps and crab fishing activity up and down the east coast of the state. Director of fisheries compliance Patrick Tully said the statewide operation had been aimed at reducing illegal crab trapping. “Crabs are very valuable. They’re easy to catch but there are rules,” he said. “Anything that we detect that’s outside the rules we treat as illegal fishing, and we hope people understand that in those situations you can face some pretty tough consequences.” click here to read the story 09:23
