Tweed Daily

Introduced pests: Another of the major threats to our aquatic environment NOT addressed by government marine parks. It is not uncommon for ECOfishers to report Golden Perch, Silver Perch and Murray Cod ( Natives from our western drainage system) in north coast rivers and streams. We even have a population of Banded Grunters in the Brunswick River. (Native to western Qld and the Gulf country) And the Brunswick River is the only estuary in the government's Cape Byron political park! Despite regular pleas from marine scientists and fisheries biologists to tighten controls on the aquarium trade, the NSW government's Translocation Policy, obviously isn't working.
A major threat to the rescue program for the endangered East Coast Cod has been the introduction of Murray Cod into the north coast streams and some dams. ECOfishers embarked on an ambitious program in the late 1980's and early 1990's (with NSW Fisheries) to restore East Coast Cod to their once known habitats. Everything was going swimmingly, with tens of thousands of E. C. Cod fingerlings being purchased and released, until during one monitoring and sampling exercise some years later, ECOfishers discovered Murray Cod in the release streams. Shock horror! Murray Cod readily cross breed with the endangered E.C.Cod and the resultant hybrid is a mule - unable to breed.
Clever dectective work by ECOfishers tracked the culprits down after painstaking investigations. A family near Mullumbimby had bought half a dozen baby Murray Cod from a pet shop for their aquaria. They thrived and soon grew too big for any tanks they owned, so when they were each about 50cm long, they could no longer keep them. Instead of eating them, they let their pets go in the local swimming hole. This was the start of a major problem for our endangered East Coast Cod - and ECOfishers "Bring Back the Cod," program.