Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group

Project Profile

Issues

The Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group commenced a stocking management plan in the region in 1986 prepared in partnership with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries. Now, more than 10,000 Murray Cod fingerlings have been stocked each year into the Dumaresq River downstream of the dam.

Project Detail

Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group Inc (GDFRG) has been nominated for a National Landcare Award for their work in implementing a stocking management plan of the Murray cod population in the Dumaresq River.

The Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group is one of the longest running stocking associations in Queensland. Prior to the group forming, more than three million Murray cod fingerlings had been stocked into the Murray Darling catchment with little knowledge of the impact or contribution of this to the natural population or the recreational fishery.

GDFRG commenced a stocking management plan in the region in 1986 prepared in partnership with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries. Now, more than 10,000 Murray Cod fingerlings have been stocked in a managed process each year into the Dumaresq River downstream of the dam.

In 2008, the GDFRG commenced a project to assess the contribution of stocking and levels of natural recruitment of the Murray cod population in the Dumaresq river between Mingoola and Bonshaw.

Information will be gathered over a number of years on population size, growth rates, habitat requirements and home ranges and will be used to improve the stocking management plans presently in place in the river and made available to all stocking groups throughout the Murray Darling.

Biannual surveys of the population are currently being undertaken over a five-year period with 80 volunteers fishing the entire river and conducting an electrofishing survey of these sites. All captured fish are recorded for length, location and habitat of capture before being tagged and returned.

So far, four surveys have been completed with over 571 Murray cod captured, tagged and recorded. The surveys are providing important information on size structures of the Murray cod population, which will feed into the overall stocking plan.

The Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group Inc. project is one of 88 finalists in the National Landcare Awards to be announced in Canberra on 24 June 2010. Commencing in 1991, the Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and groups that make a valuable contribution to the land and coast where they live and work.

Photography

Glenlyon Dam Fish Restocking Group