Gladstone Area Water Board’s $12m Aquaculture Gladstone fish hatchery at Lake Awoonga to produce 5 million fingerlings annually
“Shooting fish in a barrel”: New $12m facility to ramp up research, produce millions of fingerlings a year and make the quest for “Big Barra” in Gladstone even easier. Details here.
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Up to five million fingerlings every year will come from a new “state of the art” fish hatchery in Gladstone as the Water Board ramps up restocking and research.
The Gladstone Area Water Board (GAWB) unveiled its new $12m Aquaculture Gladstone fish hatchery at Lake Awoonga on Friday which will serve as one of the largest and most significant aquacultural breeding and restocking programs in Queensland.
The new facility features two production lines, and has capacity to produce up to five million fish fingerlings of Barramundi, Mangrove Jack and Sea Mullet each year.
The hatchery will not only restock Lake Awoonga but in future will look to supply fingerlings to other dams in Queensland and around Australia.
Water Minister and Gladstone MP, Glenn Butcher said 90 per cent of the $12m spent on the facility was sourced through the Gladstone region supply chain and completed by local builders.
“We want people to come in and check out some of these big fish so we can tell our story … we want people sending selfies all around Australia so people know Gladstone is the place to be if you want big barra … it’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” Mr Butcher said.
“The region is renowned for catching barra, we want to make sure than into the future when people talk about catching fresh barramundi they talk about Gladstone’s Awoonga Dam, so it’s a very exciting day,” he said.
The hatchery is expected to boost local tourism and open up the opportunity for more fishing tours in the region.
It comes as the Port City welcomed back the first cruise ship to the Gladstone Port Corporation’s (GPC) new terminal since the Covid pandemic halted sea tourism.
GAWB CEO Darren Barlow said the new hatchery began construction about two years ago but the Board had begun planning the move almost five years ago.
“Our team is now working on plans that will drive the future growth and development of Queensland’s aquaculture industry through tourism, education, research and development,” Mr Barlow said.
“We’ve got a facility here that will be developed into a university grade research laboratory, our intention is to advance the technology here and over time engage with local and established universities in their marine biology programs to get much better breeding cycles and that sort of research understood so we become much more efficient,” he said.
Mr Barlow said the new facility would ensure the Board meets its regulatory restocking obligations while providing quality research and educational opportunities to the public.
He said the advantage of the “state of the art facility” being based at Lake Awoonga was so operations could go on uninterrupted indefinitely, as the old site was not owned by GAWB.
Once fish reach about 50mm, they are collected and graded before a commercial fishing boat relocates them in shallows around the dam and its catchments which are conducive to high survival rates.
GAWB partnered with MainStream Aquaculture to develop a production process which optimises biological productivity and reduces its environmental footprint.
Sustainable restocking of endemic fish species in Awoonga Dam commenced when the hatchery became operational earlier this year.
A new visitor information hub is expected to open in April next year which will provide educational opportunities to the public.
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Originally published as Gladstone Area Water Board’s $12m Aquaculture Gladstone fish hatchery at Lake Awoonga to produce 5 million fingerlings annually
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