Commercial rock lobster, urchin and periwinkle fisheries have been told parts of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel will be shut down for three months because of the salmon industry’s planned antibiotic use. It’s an outrageous prioritisation by the Liberal Government of salmon industry profits over local wild fishers and their livelihood.
Last year large parts of the Channel closed for months at a time due to the salmon industry’s use of florfenicol. The industry are planning to continue using the antibiotic and have applied for an “emergency” permit to do so. In the meantime, the salmon industry is using the antibiotic oxytetracycline to reduce disease outbreaks in its salmon.
With some countries not accepting rock lobster and other wild fish with any trace of oxytetracycline, the Liberal Government’s risk management response has been their new Wild Fisheries Market Access Plan. As a result of this Plan, wild fisheries are now being shut for the next three months to ‘manage’ their risk.
What a shameful response from the Liberal Government. They’re responsible for shutting down the rock lobster and dive fisheries for the second year in a row to allow the salmon industry to continue to dose diseased salmon with antibiotics.
It’s particularly appalling when the government is refusing to require the salmon industry to take standard management actions for a disease outbreak, such as destocking pens and reducing density. Instead, the Liberals are abandoning support for Tasmanian value products and wild fish livelihoods and allowing multinational corporations to call the tune.
Unless the Liberal Government takes action, having salmon companies close fisheries so they can dump antibiotics in the marine environment will become the new normal for years to come.
Tasmanian wild catch fishers don’t want to lose their livelihoods, and nor should they have to. The Liberal Government needs to grow a spine, look after our wild catch sector, and stand up to the salmon industry.
