fish not fished out but killed out

[CreelReaper]

Cheers Ray point taken on the glyphosate mate, and well done on getting a feed too. I am glad someone is able to get out. Every time I try it bloody well storms......oh well thats fishin.....

Cheers

[RayDeR]

G'day!

Yeah getting a feed is very important and I have never missed in the 5 years or so I have had my tinnie.

Even more important than getting a feed for me is seeing evidence of the good condition of the fishing ground (Broadwater) in the number of small fish we caught and put back.

There is abundant bird life besides the silver gulls which live on hot chips.

We marvelled at a large flock of cormorants which came past. We noticed they were working as they flew just above the water. The leading ones would dive and grab small fish and then join at the back of the flock. It was like watching a track on a great Caterpillar tractor. We imagined there was a school of small fish swimming up the channel under them.

Ray de R

[RayDeR]

G'day!

Its beena while but I eventually caught up with the President of the Gold Coast Historical Society who grew up at Southport and has a life long experience of fishing in the Broadwater.

He tells me he has never heard anyone speak of dugong in the Broadwater including his parents and other older friends. He says he still has never seen a dugong.

Other older friends have confirmed this over the past months since the video was first posted.



Ray de R

[oldboot]

We realy have to be carefull what we believe and where that information is comming from.
The media seem to see it as their role to sensationalise and emotionalise every issue they can regardless aof the quality or existance of the facts.

There are a lot of people bleating about glyphosate, I wonder where the information comes from that all this is bassed on.

If you want to point a finger at a poulatant there are plenty out there far more toxic, more persistant in the environment and in far greater volumes than glyphosate.

One of the things you will know if you have used glyphosate and have read all the documentation, is that it is degraded dramaticaly with contact with soild materials, so much so you have to be very carefull that the water used when mixing it is very clean.
So the notion that glyphosate can be killing sea grass is a very very long bow to draw and would be almost impossible to prove.

Now compare it to MPCA and Dycamba, the most common turf weeder cocktail, it is typicaly used over larger areas and in greater quantity in normal use in cities.
Glyphosate us generaly used as a spot weeder and somtimes used over area applications......So look at all those manicured lawns in those canal estates, you can bett they are sprayed a couple of times a year.....the whole area......if it isn't full of bindies, and dandylions it has been sprayed.

MCPA and Dycamba is almost always used over large areas ( whole lawns).
It also is far slower to degrade in the environment.
Known to poison trees and a variety of other plants not just the broadleaf weeds it targets.

Compare also the more agressive herbacides used in the past and still in use the 24D and 245T, "agent orrange" group. Definitely long persistent and proven to cause a variety of problems in humans animals and fish.
Before Glyphosate 24D was the kill all of choice.

That is without mantioning any of the "specialiast" chemicals that may be used in green keeping and horticulture.

Then think of the thousands of gallons of organo phosphate used to treat arround homes for termites and other places that have very very long persistence in the environment and leach into our drainage every time it rains.

Now one of the main concerns about Glyphosate is the surfactants it contains.
A surfactant is ( crudely) a detergent used to make the product, mix, wet and perform well as a liquid.
Gluphosate is supplied with a surfactant pre mixed.

Almost without exception all other sprayed pesticides will either incorpirate a surfactant or will be mixed with a surfactant at time of mixing, it may be dishwashing liquid or something a bit less inocuous.
If you don't use a surfactant/ detergent, the effectiveness of the product is greatly deminished and many times greater amoint of poison will be required to do the job.

Detergents and surfactants of all types have always been a concern in water degradation the reason varies with the family of detergent/ surfactant.

So any detergent is a concern particularly that which is not treated by a waste water system.

Spary almost any frog or toad with almost any detergent and it will not be happy.
It interfeers with the way its skin works, and the most important thing about a frog that makes it a frog is its skin.

Now to that stain that was mentioned, that is a marker dye and is usualy inert and biodegradable, ( it has to be innert so it does not react with a variety of chemicals) it can be argued that any responsible volume user should be using a marker dye so they can clearly see where they have sprayed and do not over apply.

As I said I do not know where the glyphosate bashing comes from, but most of the alternative products are very much worse.

Also there are a great many things that wash into our drains, glyphosate is probaly the least of our problems.

As to what is killing seagrass, the biggest culpret will be turbidity, fine silt suspended in the water, as a result of tidal change, dredging, large boats stiring up the bottom and erroded runoff.
Then there is oil and rubber off the road.

It would probaly be easier to argue that nicotein from cigarette buts has a greater effect then glyphosate.

Another and probaly the greatest issue concerning waterway health is the " drought", reduced regular riverflows make everything worse. Toxins ( both natural and man made) build up in the rivers because of lack of flow to flush them out, erroson is always worse when rain isn;t regular, and there are also incidents with acid sulphate soils.

None of this is as simple as a great many people would have us believe.
Even didigent and honest scientists have their work cut out if required to make sensible comment about specifics, unless there is a gross incident or effect.

So how credible is a video clip or a newspaper article.

If we want to make benificial comments and have a serious influence we need to be looking at issues that are either obvious or can be proven.

cheers