INVERELL anglers John Drew and David Maetel welcomed the federal government announcement of a $15 million National Carp Control Plan over the next two and a half years, with the release of a carp-specific biological control agent (Cyprinid herpesvirus 3) by the end of 2018.
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After 16 years on NSW government fishing advisory committees, Mr Drew said the plan was a fantastic thing for anglers.
“We are fortunate there are no carp in Copeton or Pindari Dams, but in the lower reaches of the Border Rivers and the Macintyre River, carp are a scourge of local native fish populations,” he said.
Mr Maetel said there was already plenty of ‘talk in the pub’ about the virus.
“We’d love to see the carp gone, and the native fish species will do much better when the rivers are clear again,” he said.
“The Myall Creek (between Delungra and Bingara), the Horton River and areas in the Gwydir, short of the falls below the Copeton Dam site all have heavy populations of carp. The introduction of a control for carp is only a positive.”
We’d love to see the carp gone, and the native fish species will do much better when the rivers are clear again.
- David Maetel
Member for New England and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said carp were the rabbit of our waterways, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to manage one of this country’s ecosystem vandals.
“Carp have decimated native fish populations and reduced water quality since they became established in waterways in the 1960s, and then spread to rivers like the Macintyre and Gwydir,” Mr Joyce said.
He said current methods of controlling carp, such as trapping and commercial fishing, are both expensive and largely ineffective against burgeoning European carp populations over large areas, or for any length of time.
Mr Joyce said there was very strong support for the initiative across diverse stakeholder groups, including irrigators, recreational fishing organisations and conservation groups.
Carp have decimated native fish populations and reduced water quality since they became established in waterways in the 1960s.
- Barnaby Joyce
“As much as people may want the virus released immediately, we need to ensure it is safe, along with developing strategies around the clean-up program and use of harvested carp biomass,” Mr Joyce said.
Carp biomass in our waterways is estimated at between 500,000 tonnes and 2 million tonnes.
“The National Carp Control Plan is a visionary initiative based on cutting-edge biological controls backed by the best available science, and I applaud the work of the CSIRO and the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Invasive Animals CRC for their years of work to assess this biological control measure,” Mr Joyce said.
