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A mass fish rescue is underway right now in the Darling River in New South Wales. We find out more about what’s happening to the health of Australia’s biggest river system.
This is a big ol' fishing expedition in New South Wales. But don't worry little guys, you're not going to end up on a plate. It's a rescue mission, a modern-day Noah's Ark. Except without the ark and the two-by-two thing and the flooding. Fish like water, but you get the idea.
MATTHEW MCLELLAN, DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES: We managed to reach 100 fish in one day so hopefully we can do that every day and that would put us up around 400 fish for the week.
It's a massive effort to save as many fish as possible from what the New South Wales government has described as a fish Armageddon. Sounds ominous and it kinda is. You might remember seeing pictures like this earlier in the year.
OLD BTN STORY: There's another that's perished.
Up to a million fish died in parts of the Murray-Darling because of algal blooms, a type of bacteria that leeches the oxygen out of water.
MATTHEW MCLELLAN, DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES: Fish are like us, they need oxygen and as that water quality deteriorates, often oxygen is something that gets depleted and disappears. So basically, yeah, the fish will more or less suffocate.
The algae grows when that water isn't flowing properly, and scientists say it's one of the signs of a river system in crisis. The Murray-Darling stretches all the way from Queensland, through New South Wales and the ACT, then down to Victoria and South Australia. And it's Australia's biggest and most important river system, bringing life to the hot, dry centre of the country.
The farms here provide about a third of Australia's food supplies, and a lot of them are irrigated with water taken from the river. But for decades there have been arguments between states, farmers and towns over how the water is shared around, especially in times of drought. States downstream have accused states upstream of taking too much water out for growing things like cotton and nuts and leaving others without enough water and hurting the river.
That's why in 2007 Australia's government created a plan to take care of the river, and an agency to oversee it. But some say it hasn't worked. In the past few weeks there've been protests along the river with farmers saying they're being left to suffer with no water, even though the river is flowing, and that the water still isn't being shared fairly.
Some experts also reckon the Basin plan hasn't done enough to protect the river from the effects of climate change. The Basin Authority says that's not true, and the federal government says it's the drought that's causing the problems, and only rain can fix it. In the meantime, the New South Wales government has announced a 10-million-dollar fish rescue package to try to make sure what happened last summer doesn't happen again.
So that's why the whole Noah's Ark thing is going on. Hundreds of native fish like golden perch and Murray cod, some up to 25 years old, are being scooped up and relocated. Our fishy friends will go to other, healthier parts of the river, or to hatcheries, where they'll be cared for until the water starts flowing again. While many are hoping it'll help, others say a lot more needs to be done to save the river, and everything and everyone that depends on it.