Today’s announcement from Salmon Tasmania that they will spend six million dollars over the next two years to attempt to artificially increase oxygen levels in Macquarie Harbour highlights the madness of farming fish there in the first place.
It stands in direct contravention to the laws of nature and is a project designed to deflect criticism, rather than make a difference to the plight of the Maugean Skate.
It cannot mitigate or undo the damage done by fish farming in Macquarie Harbour, which was labelled by the Federal Government as having a “catastrophic” impact on the Maugean Skate.
“This is like BP saying they are taking the lead in cleaning up Deepwater Horizon and everyone should be thankful,” said Alistair Allan, Antarctic and Marine campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation.
“It completely ignores the fact that if fish farms were never in the harbour in the first place, the Maugean Skate wouldn’t be on the edge of extinction.”
“Industrial fish farms caused a critically low oxygen event in Macquarie Harbour in 2017 and the Maugean Skate never recovered.”
“Salmon Tasmania should take this six million dollars and use it as a compensation package to all the workers that they misled when they started farming fish in Macquarie Harbour. It is because of their greed for profits that they overstocked the harbour, caused a dissolved oxygen catastrophe and ruined their own industry. It is because of them that an animal is on the edge of extinction and so it should be up to them to help this beleaguered species and the workers they have let down.”