Massive carp orgies and better conditions for native fish sex could both help restore the River Murray
MASSIVE carp orgies and better conditions for native fish sex could both help restore the River Murray.
- Murray Darling plan: Water wars threaten the Coorong
- Something fishy about war on carp
- European carp to be exposed to herpes virus to cull numbers
- Save the Murray levy now axed, but have we really saved the River?
MASSIVE carp orgies and better conditions for native fish sex could both help restore the River Murray.
Carp are a pest but make up about 90 per cent of river fish. The Federal Government plans to give them herpes to kill them off and their group sex habit would help spread the disease.
On the other hand, native fish and their eggs are being wiped out by cold water, which also kills the mood for sex, experts say.
As all sides of politics bicker over the Murray Darling Basin Plan and how to save the river’s plants and animals as well as human jobs, some are looking to alternative ways to heal the system.
Water Minister Barnaby Joyce has appointed Matt Barwick as “Carpinator”, in charge of the carp herpes program.
Mr Barwick told The Advertiser that getting rid of the carp, which churn up the river bed, would help sunlight get through, which would in turn increase plant and bug life that native fish need.
He said water released from dams, often released as environmental flows, could deter the fish from sex and can even kill them.
“Thirteen degree water passed over where cod spawn will result in 100 per cent mortality of cod eggs and the effects can persist for hundreds of kilometres downstream from the dam,” he said.
National Irrigators’ Council chief executive Tom Chesson said that eliminating carp could be “the biggest game changer we’ll see in our lifetime”.
“There are more carp orgies in the Coorong than just about anywhere else. It’s the perfect carp breeding environment ... it’s not all about flow,” he said.
In other developments in the intensifying Murray fight, state Opposition Leader Steven Marshall flew to Canberra yesterday to speak to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about proposed changes to the plan; he left the meeting feeling “very heartened” that all 3200 billion litres of promised flows would be delivered.
He said Mr Turnbull was “quite emphatic” on that point and that state Labor had signed up to the plan as it stands.
And SA Unions will tonight start making “robocalls”, asking people to fight for the Murray because “it’s good for the environment and, most of all, it’s good for jobs”.
The calls will urge people to call their local Federal Liberal MPs and the Nick Xenophon Team members to urge them to do what they can to save the river.