According to the information the authority has imposed three week fishing ban to avert the disease which developed last year in the stocks of fish in Gladstone Harbour. The report by the Gladstone Fish Health Scientific Advisory Panel was commissioned last year after large numbers of the sick fish –mainly barramundi – were caught in the harbour and later found to have high parasitic levels.
Fishermen blamed bad water quality for such disease saying that dredging had stirred up chemicals in the water, but the government denied the claims, instead pointing to the January floods as a more likely factor. But after series of investigations it was found that the water quality was not a risk. It noted the fish were likely “stressed”, although it did not offer a cause.
The investigation report indicate that scientific panel said that the water quality results received to date indicate the observed values of the measured water quality parameters are not unusual (compared to historical values and trends), except for extremely low salinity during the 2010-2011 wet season. Fisheries and Marine Infrastructure Minister Craig Wallace welcomed the report and its finding that handling the fish was not a health risk.
He told that there should be an independent scientific assessment of fish health in Gladstone. He also said that Fisheries Queensland has found approximately 95 per cent of non-barramundi fish caught in their monitoring in the Gladstone area are in good health and now that the panel has released its findings, there should now be no doubt in anyone’s mind that local seafood for sale is a good, safe product.
