Researchers have found new evidence to suggest the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish may soon recover from the threat of extinction. Read more here.
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About Me
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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The recovery of the this species is good news, and so too is the ABC report acknowledging that forest practices has contributed to its recovery. When the species was first listed the major threatening process was fishing, followed by land clearing for agriculture or urban development. Forestry was, and in my mind still is, of a very minor impact.
Yet despite a massive investment by the forest sector through scientific studies, reservations under the RFA and restrictions under the forest practices code, the so called Wilderness Society and green political activists claimed that the forestry and the value adding pulp mill approved for the Bell Bay Industrial estate would threaten this species.
In comparison, prior to being listed as vulnerable, the crayfish had traditionally been harvested as a meat fishery and also, due to their large size, as a trophy fishery. The annual take in 1990 was estimated to be between 10,000 – 15,000 lobsters. Fishing was banned in January 1998, now 10 years later we see the results of reducing this pressure.