DougieK wrote:poodoo wrote:Broomstick wrote:My lab does a fair bit of research at Hazelwood and has just gotten funding to start a project on the barramundi, which is super cool. The project will look at interactions between the barra and the most common fish at hazelwood, the red devil (Amphilophus labiatus). Red devils occur in two morphs - a gold and a brown morph. My lab has done a fair bit of research looking at these different morphs (eg: the relative abundance of each morph, how they differ in diet and habitat use, how their behaviour differs, etc) and comparing it to that of native red devil populations in Central America. Anyway, this new project will look at how the introduction of a top level predator will influence the relative abundance of these morphs, and how it will alter their behaviour, habitat use etc, which, from a fishing point of view, will give some really good insights into what the barra are feeding on and where (eg: are they feeding on gold or brown morphs). But yeah it will be a couple of years before we see some meaningful results (assuming the barra survive).
Hey Broomie whats your view on the liklihood of the barra surviving in those water conditions?
I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this and also on the stocking of Mulloway into the East Gippsland estuary systems.
I think they'll do really well. The water quality there is good (pH, dissolved oxygen, heavy metal concentrations, agricultural contaminations, etc) and there will be so much food for them.The water temperature in the pondage varies quite a bit (20-35 degrees), so I think that might dictate where the barra spend most of their time. There aren't any large piscivorous predators in their either so even the smallest stocked barra shouldn't get preyed upon. You can read the full risk assessment of the stocking (conducted by fisheries) here:
http://www.frdc.com.au/research/Final_R ... 04-DLD.pdf
As for the mulloway in Gippy, they will do fine if they can avoid the big flatties and tailor until they get a little bigger (there are already good populations of mulloway in Tyers and Tamboon - this initiative is just aimed at replenishing stocks). It would be nice to see them released a little bigger, but I guess that probably isn't feasible.