A quadrangular-shaped ray-like species, it has survived in brackish water on the bottom of Macquarie harbour – an immense body of water onestimated the population slumped by 47% between 2014 and 2021 after a sharp drop in dissolved oxygen levels in the harbour due to human activity and a heavy storm.
In Tasmania, where both major parties argue the $1.3bn salmon industry is vital to the state, the reconsideration process has set off a political bomb. Two adults – one female and one male – died, but the remaining female has since laid 54 eggs, and 19 baby skates have hatched from the eggs brought from the wild.The head of the program, Prof Jayson Semmens, says it has been a stressful, hazardous process – “there’s a lot of weight on our shoulders” – but some babies are now beyond the three-month age that suggests they have a good chance to survive.
Plibersek gave her view on the oxygenation trial in a letter to Rockliff in November. She described it as a “positive step forward”, but suggested that “on its own, it will not be enough to solve the problem”. She says it is “completely inexplicable” that Plibersek has not yet made a decision, “shocking” that Rockliff and Winter signed an industry letter that dismissed science-based concerns as activism, and that the-oxygenation trial is about justifying the salmon industry, not rehabilitating the harbour.