The State’s peak environment group has expressed its serious concern about today’s announcement by the Tasmania Government that only minor cuts will be made to salmon numbers in Macquarie Harbour. The EPA has announced that a minimum of 9,500 thousand tonnes of salmon will remain in Macquarie Harbour, despite the release of the latest report by the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies which shows low oxygen levels and marine dead zones persist in Macquarie Harbour’s World Heritage Area.

“The Hodgman Government has been impotent in the face of the unravelling crash of Macquarie Harbour. This biomass reduction might have worked two years ago. It is too little too late now, as we are seeing persistent dead zones in Macquarie Harbour reaching into the World Heritage Area.”

“Considering that a serious disease, POMV, has now established in the Harbour, causing mass fish kills over the summer period, the Government needs to require a complete fallowing or rest period for the Harbour to allow it to recover, not the maintenance of industrial level salmon tonnage,” Ms Kelly says.

For comment: 0401 559 335.

• The latest IMAS report on Macquarie Harbour can be accessed here. http://www.imas.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/1086563/IMAS-Progress-Report-on-Macquarie-Harbour-_-February-2018.pdf
• The report describes a decline in dissolved oxygen levels in the Harbour, which by mid-October last year had reached the very low levels experienced in spring 2016 and were typically at less than 10% saturation at depths below 20m at the Table Head Central, Strahan, Franklin and World Heritage Area monitoring strings.
• Pages 19 and 20 of the report table zero faunal abundance in World Heritage Area monitoring sites.