Shellfish Biotoxin Research Survey and other News
Biotoxin researchers need help from Tassie fishers who are out there on the water taking and eating rock lobster.
SARDI (South Australian Research & Development Institute) are assessing the risk of eating lobsters during a biotoxin outbreak. A 2015 survey showed that 21% of Western Region fishers eat the liver (or mustard) and only 15% in the Eastern Region. By comparison, in South Australia only 5% consume this part of the lobster.
SARDI are now doing a follow-up survey to learn more including to see if eating habits have changed due to recent biotoxin events.
Please complete the survey which only takes 5 minutes.
Public Health Warning and Scallops
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued a public warning on 19 March not to eat wild harvested recreational shellfish due to Diarrhetic Shellfish Toxin (DST) detected in mussels from Mercury Passage, on Tasmania's East Coast. Read the warning for more details.
Following this, DHHS provided further precautionary advice to discard the roe of recreationally harvested scallops prior to consumption. Scallops have not been sampled nor tested for the key East Coast recreational scallop beds. This additional advice was provided in response to the opening of the recreational scallop fishery.
The DHHS warning does not include rock lobster or abalone. Seafood and fishery scientists working on the human health risks associated with biotoxins have reported that there is low risk of DST in rock lobster and sea urchins.
The recreational scallop season opened on March 19 for all state waters except the D'Entrecasteaux Channel.
Rock Lobster and Abalone Surveys 2014-15
Recreational abalone and rock lobster surveys are conducted by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies every three years with an annual survey reporting on the Eastern Region rock lobster fishery.
Rock lobster - the survey found recreational fishers caught an estimated 98,441 rock lobsters equating to 119 tonnes in 2014/15. By weight, 47% of the catch was from the East Coast, 32% from the North and 21% from the West Coast.
Abalone - recreational fishers caught an estimated 74,769 abalone, equating to around 36 tonnes or 1.9% of the combined recreational and commercial catch of 1891 tonnes.
