Salmon farming may be halted to save rare skate

Federal authorities in Australia say salmon farming operations in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour could be temporarily halted amid a reconsideration of licences to protect a rare breed of skate.

But the move has been met with fierce opposition from the local salmon industry.

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has warned the industry it may not be able to continue, amid a push to protect the endangered Maugean skate (pictured) which is thought to be only found in that part of the world.

Numbers have been declining due to low levels of oxygen in the harbour — primarily due to “unsustainable salmon farming”, it is being claimed, as well as hydro operations and climate change.

The Minister has written to the Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff suggesting that an investigation by a skate recovery team had said reducing salmon farming in the area could be an important step in protecting the fish.

The Maugean skate, sometimes called the Port Davey skate, is a species of fish which was only discovered in 1988.

Its natural habitat is estuarine waters and it is endemic to Tasmania, only found in the estuarine waters of Macquarie Harbour and Bathurst Harbour.

Tasmania’s Maugean skate

The term “harbour” is misleading because MacQuarie is a large fjord covering around 315 square kilometres (166 square miles) and goes down to a depth of 50 metres in places.

Federal officials are currently looking at requests from three environmental related groups for a reconsideration of whether the salmon industry has the necessary approval to operate in MacQuarie Harbour.

If the requests had legal validity then it would require consultation with the industry, its workers and the state government, Plibersek said. If the salmon farmers did not have national environmental approval then that would require a pause in operations while such approval was being sought.

Last week a motion in the Tasmanian Parliament defending the salmon industry was passed with bipartisan support. The motion, among other points, “rejected calls by activist groups to remove salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour as an unreasonable and unnecessary response to the effort to save the Port Davey/Maugean Skate”.

Meanwhile, industry body Salmon Tasmania CEO Luke Martin said climate change, gillnet fishing and hydro damming took place in the harbour and these could be having an impact on the skate.

“Yes, salmon is one industry that operates in Macquarie Harbour but there are absolutely no guarantees that taking the easy route and blaming salmon will help to save the skate, but what it will do is cost jobs and devastate communities,” he stressed.

“The salmon industry is getting on with the job of responding to the recommendations of the minister’s own task force, committing (AUS) $6m [£3.1m] for major oxygenation project in the harbour.”

He added: “It’s high time for Hydro Tasmania to step up and play its part in the recovery of the skate, especially having just posted a $168m [£87.5m] profit.”