Tag Archives: rock lobsters
Fishermen wary of seismic plans for Bass Strait waters
Andrew Smith wants to keep crayfishing long enough to put his children through school. But plans for further seismic testing off his Bass Strait home of King Island have him worried. Energy data company TGS wants to survey for gas across some 4.5 million hectares in the Otway Basin, which are Commonwealth waters between Tasmania and Victoria. Seismic testing has been shown to negatively impact whales as well as other marine life. Tasmanian Seafood Industry Council chief executive Julian Harrington said the testing area was adjacent to rock lobster and giant crab fisheries. He said the waters were a “larvae corridor” for rock lobsters, which have a 15 to 18 month larvae cycle. more, >>click to read<< 07:24
Tasmania: King Island lobster fishers fear seismic testing plans could damage the local industry
Wayne Coombe casts his mind back about 15 years when seismic testing was conducted off the island’s south west. “There was an abundance of lobster there and after that survey, it was almost like they died overnight of old age,” he said. “Lobsters just disappeared, they didn’t crawl, they were not there.” Gas giant ConocoPhillips is hoping to conduct seismic testing in mid-August at the Otway Basin to the west of King Island to assess its natural gas reservoirs. >click to read< 09:08
Seismic air guns found to harm balance organ in rock lobsters
A team of researchers with the University of Tasmania and Curtin University has found that seismic air guns used for oil and gas exploration can damage a sensory organ in rock lobsters called the statocyst, which provides balance and orientation. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes tests they conducted with lobsters in their lab and what they found. >click to read< 11:02
Businessmen fined a historic $2 million for overfishing rock lobster
Australian rock lobsters are the best in the world but after they started to disappear from unlimited fishing, the government decided the expensive crustacean was going to be fiercely protected. And that was the expensive lesson a number of Wollongong businessmen learnt yesterday after a judge in the coastal city handed down the biggest fines ever given for illegal fishing in NSW history. The group of men, who were part of the fishing company that engaged in the major scam, the seafood restaurant that bought them and anyone associated with the crime, were fined a whopping $2.1 million. click here to read the story 11:16
