Tests On For Virus In Prawn Catches
Newcastle Herald
Saturday April 21, 2001
PRAWNS caught in Hunter waters during the next fortnight will be tested for one of the world's most virulent marine viruses.
Prawns from Stockton Bight, the Hunter River, Lake Macquarie, Tuggerah Lakes, the Great Lakes and Manning River will be checked as part of a sampling program involving all prawn estuaries and ocean fisheries along the NSW coast.
The move follows a State Government ban introduced last week on the use and sale of green prawns caught in Sydney Harbour after White Spot syndrome virus was found in a prawn sample.
The virus threatens the $6million NSW prawn farming industry and the State's entire $23million wild prawn industry, according to Fisheries Minister Eddie Obeid.
It had `decimated' prawn farms in China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
Mr Obeid said the virus would not harm humans and could be killed by cooking.
The disease was probably imported from Asia because of a lack of quarantine controls, he said.
It was possible that native prawns in Australian waters could be infected by green prawns being used as fishing bait.
Mr Obeid said the positive test did not mean that all prawn stocks in Sydney Harbour were infected.
A test in Botany Bay was negative.
Mr Obeid said he had ordered follow-up tests throughout Sydney Harbour, along with checks in all NSW prawn estuaries and ocean fishing areas.
Mr Obeid criticised the Federal Government's `lax' controls on green prawns.
`The Commonwealth Government admitted that their import controls were inadequate in December last year after an outbreak of white spot disease in Darwin Harbour,' he said.
`Their desperate attempts to rewrite the import rules for green prawns ... have been too little too late.'
© 2001 Newcastle Herald