bycatch

[rickraider]

mabe it is the onshone winds for the last few days but been a lot small cuttlefish ;leatherjackets;and small fish dead on the beach been heaps of trawlers offshore .i live near coolum. shits me :-X

[jaybee]

Saw something the other day about a brown ooze on the beach at noosa, wouldnt have something to do with that would it, cant find the story at present but as soon as i do will post it here for u
cheers

[jaybee]

Courier Mail News

Putrid sludge empties Noosa beach
Glenis Green 05 nov 03

NOOSA'S famous Main Beach is on the nose with lifeguards moving flags to help swimmers avoid a putrid, brown sludge washing in during low tides.


The sight and smell of the sludge was so bad that the usually popular beach was almost deserted yesterday morning, with one beachgoer saying it made her feel like vomiting.

Noosa Council is blaming the mess on seasonal algae combined with winds and currents which have trapped the rotting vegetation in sheltered Laguna Bay.

New Zealander Olly Moseley, who had arrived from Auckland on Monday for holidays, said the stink, particularly at the beach's southern reaches, was "disgusting".

"I'm going to go around to Sunshine Beach, because I don't want to swim in it," she said.

Paul Pettofrezza of Melbourne, who ventured to the water's edge with his son Tori, 3, said the filthy waves and the smell were "shocking".

Booking six months ago for a family holiday staying at The Sebel in Hastings St, Mr Pettofrezza said it was disappointing to be paying such a large amount of money when the beach was mostly unusable.

He said he had smelt rotten seaweed before, but thought the sludge at Noosa beach smelled more like sewage than anything else.

"It makes you sick, it's awful," he said, refusing to let his son go for a swim.

There was some confusion yesterday between the council and Noosa Heads Surf Life Saving Club administrator Robin Harding when Mr Harding reported that lifeguards had closed the beach pending tests to ensure the water was safe for swimming.

However the council's director of works, Alan Sheridan, said the beach had not been closed and that lifeguards were simply moving flagged areas, depending on the algae, to safeguard swimmers' visibility. He said the algae was a problem up and down the coast and the council was not conducting any tests.

"It is currently a problem on Noosa Beach depending on the prevailing winds and water," Mr Sheridan said.

"We're aware of it but there's nothing we can do about it."

Mr Sheridan said despite the smell the sludge "couldn't be sewage" and there had been no sewage spills "so there's no issues there".

Last year a similar beach mess was blamed on increased algal bloom caused by council sand dredging works, but Mr Sheridan said there had been no works which could have contributed to the current problem.

He said while the council had a standing permit for beach cleaning it needed to consult with the Environmental Protection Agency for clearance.

[agnes_jack]

Up here at agnes water we have had the brown sludge travelling past for a couple of weeks now.Weget it every year at about the same time. It is definatly an algal bloom that coinsides with a rise in water temperature. Cant say that Ive ever heard of it causing fish kills though. Sounds to me more like discarded bycatch, especially since it appears to be only small fish etc that are effected.
agnes_jack

[mackmauler]

there has been what we call tricodesmium all the way out to the shelf lately, could it be the same stuff floating inshore?

[Kerry]

It's that thing they call nature #:P , basically a blue green algae variant in conjunction with the winds and everyone knows how (un)predictable winds can be.

Newspapers beat this one to death every year, must not have too much else to write about.

Cheers, Kerry.

[rickraider]

must be potent stuff algae bloom a lot of fish had necks broken ???

[banshee]

Rickraider,I'd say you hit the nail on the head and it shits me off as well.

[Zeeke]

that brown sludge is awful stuff, have seen it when going across the bay infront of Mooloolaba and its seriously like bush bashing with a 4wd and going through a slick of mud.. also the other day there was alot of brown slick in Mooloolaba river.. but that was probably just diesel that the dipshits at the trawlers spilt (which they did) that night

Tim