We’re going to call it the ‘Jurassic Park Approach’. When faced with the potential extinction of a critically endangered ancient species, Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s default position seems to be … captive breeding.

‘When the minister promised no new extinctions on her watch, I don’t think the Australian public imagined that meant we would have a threatened species zoo…’ mocked a marine campaigner.

Recently, Plibersek has found $2.1 million in loose change in the corners of Canberra to fund a breeding project for the Maugean Skate – an extremely rare variety of stingray-esque creature that inhabits Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania.

The skate will join 109 other threatened species in Labor’s ‘action plan’ to ensure there are ‘no new extinctions’.

The 10-year thought bubble is part of the Australian government’s ‘virtue signalling’ for Threatened Species Day, and is cluttered with Labor’s usual lip service repeatedly mentioning that it draws on the ‘65,000 years’ of Indigenous caretakership of the land.

Not only is that figure widely contested and almost certainly wrong, Australia’s most notable extinction events for megafauna coincide with the arrival of Aboriginal people on the continent and is most likely caused by over-hunting. The loss of this megafauna catastrophically changed the behaviour of the bush and may be the underlying cause for our severe bushfires (instead of global warming). Without large animals eating and trampling the undergrowth, everything has gone wild.

Labor always leaves those extinctions out, just as Labor fails to mention that Aboriginal hunting of critically endangered dugongs and sea turtles continues for ‘cultural reasons’.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have an environmental paper that skips the padding?

Back to Tasmania and its weird little skate. They have come under threat from salmon farms which have been set up around the harbour. An unforeseen consequence of the feed used to keep the pens full of farmed salmon alive and the concentrated fish waste has seen a reduction in oxygen levels in the water below. Negative flow-on effects from this appear to be killing off the skate’s food sources. Though it should be noted that the salmon fishing industry contests the results of the research and denies any firm links between the pens and the die-off of the skate.

This was not known when the approval was given to expand the salmon farms all the way back in 2012. Since 2014, researchers say half the skate have died, leaving a population of around 1,000.

‘Captive breeding is not the solution. In the federal government’s updated conservation plan, released today, they list fish farm impacts on the skate as “catastrophic”, so that’s what must be addressed,’ said Alistair Allan, from the Bob Brown Foundation.

It’s refreshing to see environmentalists advocating for useful things rather than moaning about fractional degrees in the climate to justify communism or extra taxes.

When it comes to the problem of skate, this shouldn’t be a choice between saving a sea creature and keeping salmon farms open.

Salmon farming is not something Plibersek can ‘switch off’ in Tasmania without sparking a huge economic, social, and local disaster. That won’t stop the Greens from leaning on Labor’s arm for a knee-jerk reaction that validates their political existence. Heaven knows they need the PR after an alarming number of their MPs and Senators were caught sympathising with the chants of Hamas’ ‘from the river to the sea’. Hamas may be the least environmentally conscious outfit on the planet, but the Greens like anything socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and shouty.

There are legitimate questions about whether the skate is a species living on the edge of extinction – a creature on the path to oblivion with or without the salmon. If it’s one of life’s losers, then Tasmania might as well keep the salmon. It sounds harsh but that’s how evolution works.

Equally, we should preserve and protect Australia’s natural environments where we can. It is why this publication riles against the atrocious behaviour of the Labor Party knocking down rainforests and destroying coastal waters with wind turbines and solar farms. If the skate is dying from a water quality problem, other things will die too.

‘We know the key threats remain poor water quality in Macquarie Harbour from aquaculture, hydro operations, and climate change…’ said Plibersek.

If Tasmania embraced nuclear instead of hydro, their rivers wouldn’t be suffering from the significant interference of hydro schemes. Just because it’s water, doesn’t mean it’s harmless. How much of an impact this has we are not sure, because studies prefer to demonise the salmon farmers over the green energy providers.

The issue is not whether Plibersek should play at being John Hammond and start a little preservation park for creatures like the skate… We are not here to save the canary flopped over in the cage with its feet in the air. It’s about sorting out the panicky research advice from the propaganda, from the ‘please give me a grant ‘cause global warming’ begging bowls, and from the genuine concerns based on solid data that warrants further action from the minister.

Labor is in a bit of a bind on this one. They don’t like ocean fishing because it depletes fish stocks (or more correctly, China has over-fished the region to such a point that the rest of us can no longer partake), so we lean on intensive fish farming instead. Humans are not (and should not) have to give up fish – so it has to come from somewhere.

Tasmania has a lot of open water, surely there is a suitable place for this industry?

While we could wait for the skate to die off and then consider it a moot point (I bet that’s on the table somewhere as an option), the wider problem of the water quality turning into a putrid pond will kill off the salmon farms too if it is not addressed.

Calls to ‘remove fish farming from Macquarie Harbour before this summer’ are extremist and would, as others have rightly pointed out, trigger a nightmare. Those calling on the farming licences to be revoked when they come up for review on November 30 do not appear to have a plan for either the restoration of the harbour or the futures of the families and businesses that circle the industry.

Besides, it could be that restoring flows ruined by hydroenergy activity would fix the problem and allow the salmon and skate to happily co-exist.

The comments from an AMCS shark scientist are interesting, in particular, the mention of manipulated flows from hydro-electricity:

‘The Maugean skate’s only home is Macquarie Harbour, where intensive salmon farming is depleting what little oxygen there is, and manipulated river flows to generate electricity are limiting oxygen-rich seawater from entering the harbour.

‘The Australian Government knows what has to be done to improve the water quality of Macquarie Harbour. Removing salmon pens would give the Maugean skate a fighting chance of survival, as well as addressing the freshwater flows from the hydroelectric dams.’

According to Drivers of deep water renewal in Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania:

‘Both of the system’s major tributaries have hydroelectric power schemes controlling catchment discharge into the harbour. The harbour has a history of low oxygen concentrations and the bottom water is often oxygen-poor. No study to date has described the underlying mechanisms of deep water renewal and oxygenation in the system.’

It sounds like hydro-power might have more to do with water quality than many news articles admit.

And let’s not forget that the skate vanished from Bathurst Habour, last seen sometime in the 1980s. Maybe their time is up…? Or do we take the Jeremy Clarkson approach to the world and start farming and eating the endangered species? Snacks do not tend to go extinct. There are lots of options, but for Labor, they will all sound like hypocrisy while they have bulldozers knocking off mountain tops for wind turbines. The gap between virtue and environmental harm is widening leaving Plibersek straddling the problem, unsure of what to do.

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Flat White is written and edited by Alexandra Marshall.

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