Go-ahead for Lake Argyle barramundi project (A/Min)

A barramundi farming project in Lake Argyle has been given the go-ahead for a 12-month trial.

Acting Fisheries Minister Jim McGinty and North West Minister Ernie Bridge today said a consortium which included local fishermen had been given permission to grow juvenile barramundi to a marketable size.

A permit had been issued for the consortium to collect a limited number of wild juvenile barramundi from the lower Ord River.

The fish would be placed in cages in Lake Argyle.

Mr McGinty said their growth rates and response to cage rearing would be monitored.

"Barramundi is one of our most prized fish, having superb eating and catching qualities," he said.

"In Western Australia, the limited wild stocks are mostly confined to the big river systems and estuaries of the Kimberley region.

"Successful fish farms in the Northern Territory, Queensland and South-East Asia have shown barramundi can not only be hatched but reared to a marketable size by intensive aquaculture.

"However, we have yet to prove this under local conditions."

Mr Bridge said if the trial were successful, the consortium intended establishing a hatchery to provide further barramundi to grow to commercial size.

"Barramundi migrate from fresh to salt water to breed, then often return to fresh water after spawning," he said.

"As a result, there are no naturally occurring barramundi upstream of the dam walls at Lake Argyle and Lake Kununurra."

Mr McGinty said local barramundi stocks were free of the diseases which afflicted hatcheries in other States.

"That is why an interdepartmental committee on aquaculture has agreed that this first trial should use local rather than imported stock," he said.

If the trial were successful, it would provide information which would help in restocking projects for recreational fishing waters and in the establishment of bigger hatchery and farming operations, he said.