Huon Aquaculture founder and main partner, Peter Bender. (Photo: Huon Aquaculture)

Maintenance failures would have caused mass escape in kingfish pilot farm

Huon Aquaculture's owner considers the mass escape of about 20,000 fish taking place early this year at a kingfish (Seriola lalandi) pilot farm located in Stephens Port, South New Wales, was due to maintenance failure of the nets.

The aquaculture firm has been performing the five-year trial at a mid-north coast site of the state together with the NSW Department of Primary Industries of South New Wales. 

Huon’s owner, Peter Bender, explained that the incident took place when there were waves of up to 11 metres high and that the cages set up by the firm were ready to withstand worse conditions. In this regards, he said the cages were appropriate but what happened was that apparently they did not consider certain issues related to the net maintenance in those facilities.

Bender explained that in Tasmania, there are different sorts of fouling on the nets, and that they have a lot of barnacles as well as mussels on the nets and particularly on the predator nets, which weighed it down a lot, ABC News reported.

The executive pointed out that the unexpected barnacle growth was an introduced species which most likely came from ballast water in ships using Newcastle harbour.

"The barnacles were cutting through the ropes that held the net in place particularly in that rough weather, it's one of those things, we learn as we go along and that's why we’re doing a trial here, we only wanted to have a few pens up here, we only had three pens of fish and we've learned a lot from that, so now it's a matter of getting some equipment that'll take that fouling off the nets," Bender stressed.

For his part, the executive director of NSW DPI Fisheries, Dr Geoff Allan, said he was confident that new net cleaning equipment bought by Huon would greatly improve the integrity of the sea pens in rough weather.

"This is what a trial is for, to try and find the weaknesses in the project and when you find the weaknesses to readjust in our case the strategy for the long-term future to make sure it doesn't happen again," Dr Allan said.

According to one of the key critics of the joint venture, there has not been enough independent scrutiny of the fish escape or of the ongoing management of the project.

However, Dr Allan said the fish escape was being investigated by the Department of Planning and Environment, which approved the trial farm.

The University of Newcastle was providing independent analysis of water quality and environmental impacts on the sea floor. Conditions had also been set by the Commonwealth Department for Environment and Energy.

"We've had no issues to date with pathogens or disease, the fish grow very rapidly, in fact more rapidly than our initial models suggested. Their feed conversion ratios and their feeding is quite effective in the cages," Dr. Allan claimed.

This aquaculture project is a collaboration between NSW DPI and Huon Aquaculture to determine the viability and sustainability of yellowtail kingfish farming in marine cages.

In the pilot-scale farm the response of the equipment during severe weather conditions is also investigated. Each cage contains between 15,000 and 20,000 fish. 

Related articles: 

 - Environmental impact worries after escape of thousands of farmed fish
- Huon launches protocol to recover escaped yellowtail kingfish

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