* What is happening to control feral fish?

There is a great deal happening around the country to control pest fish.

One area where there is great progress is the Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment

In the upper Murrumbidgee there is a small yet resilient population of native fish remaining. We also have a variety of lake, river and creek ecosystems, some of which are in good health and contain a variety of aquatic flora and fauna. Managing pest fish species is an important part of protecting our native species and ecosystems, as well as working towards helping restore native species populations and their habitat. In the upper Murrumbidgee there are a range of activities currently underway to address this problem.

Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch Upper Murrumbidgee Waterwatch will soon incorporate carp monitoring as part of its river health monitoring program and for this reason has partnered with the Invasive Animals CRC to use FeralFishScan as the mapping tool to capture carp data. This information will provide further insights into factors affecting catchment health of our rivers, lakes and creeks. This information is made available to government, community and industry organisations to inform their catchment management activities.
The Upper Murrumbidgee Demonstration Reach The Upper Murrumbidgee Demonstration Reach is undertaking a carp research project which is aiming to gather data to fill in key knowledge gaps about carp in the upper Murrumbidgee catchment. The project will study carp movements and use the data gathered through FeralFishScan to identify carp hotspots and breeding areas. The project will also carry out a riverine carp trapping program at Bush Heritage Australia’s Scottsdale Reserve to investigate the effects of carp trapping to help support the recovery of native fish populations. For more information on the UMDR Carp Research project go to http://www.upperbidgeereach.org.au/.
Local fishing clubs and Carp events Local fishing clubs across the region have annual ‘carp outs’ to reduce carp numbers in our lakes and rivers, including at lake Burley Griffin (Canberra Fishing Club), the Numeralla River (Numeralla Fishing Club) and the Yass River (Yass Soldiers Club). The Numeralla Fishing Club is also undertaking native fish stocking in the Numeralla River to boost the numbers of native fish in order to create predatory pressure to reduce carp numbers.
Other activities There are also a range of other actions in the upper Murrumbidgee which aim to protect native fish populations and restore river health which complement pest fish management. More information about these initiatives will be available on this website soon.