White Spot Question

Something has been bugging me since the onset, got to get this off my chest. So correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as I know, Whitespot was initially discovered around the Logan River Farms. The incident was isolated at the time, again as far as I know.

The blame seems to be that us fishos used foreign bought prawns as bait and introduced the disease.

Has any investigation been done if the Farms had used foreign feed for the prawns and had that feed been tested for Whitespot?

Ticks me off that we get blamed for everything.

Happy to be set right.

Hey Ivan! Long time .....

I know that they exhaustively tested the feed and it was cleared of blame.

The blame really lies at the feet of the importers who brought in the raw infected prawns in the first place, and I gather there have been charges laid against them for avoiding/fraudlent testing of the inbound shipments. They knew exactly what they were doing and didnt care.

IMO those bastards should have been made to wear the full costs of the whole debacle. But international politics and related interests get in the way, of course.

They say we may never definitively, to a criminal standard of proof, be able to prove how the infected prawns got into the waterways. But the most likely source is rec fishers using shop bought, raw, infected imported prawns as bait.

There is an "issue" when the imported goods are "processed" as distinct from fresh, processed are more or less regulated by the country of origin, other wise, Customes would have to inspect frozen and pre packaged goods of all sorts, whereas fresh should get caught at our border, been down this road before after the Blue Ring Octopus drama. I personally think all that shit from Thailand and the like should not be allowed anywhere near us, that includes green Prawns, those rubbish Vanemi Prawns, Basa and so on, I don't care who likes the stuff, or how cheap it is, piss it off from our country........

Hey (Obi Wan) Grant

Yep been a long time.

Been busy with other things but back to more important things like fishing.

We should get together for a fish in the Bay.

Too windy lately for a fish.

Hate to say this but moved over to the Darkside _ positive is a clean boat when I get home.

Good to hear the prawn feed is clean but I remember reading somewhere that a certain percentage of whitespot in imported prawns is acceptable risk _ it should be never acceptable.

Cheers
Ivan

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Originally Posted by castlemaine

Hey (Obi Wan) Grant

Yep been a long time.

Been busy with other things but back to more important things like fishing.

We should get together for a fish in the Bay.

Too windy lately for a fish.

Hate to say this but moved over to the Darkside _ positive is a clean boat when I get home.

Good to hear the prawn feed is clean but I remember reading somewhere that a certain percentage of whitespot in imported prawns is acceptable risk _ it should be never acceptable.

Cheers
Ivan

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LOL yes, Grasshopper, it has been a long time!

I am a gentleman of leisure now, retired, so if you are keen for a fish mid-week give me a buzz.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moonlighter

Hey Ivan! Long time .....

I know that they exhaustively tested the feed and it was cleared of blame.

The blame really lies at the feet of the importers who brought in the raw infected prawns in the first place, and I gather there have been charges laid against them for avoiding/fraudlent testing of the inbound shipments. They knew exactly what they were doing and didnt care.

IMO those bastards should have been made to wear the full costs of the whole debacle. But international politics and related interests get in the way, of course.

They say we may never definitively, to a criminal standard of proof, be able to prove how the infected prawns got into the waterways. But the most likely source is rec fishers using shop bought, raw, infected imported prawns as bait.

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This is not over by a long way. Importers were gaming the system by selective testing when testing should have been random & widespread. BioSecurity were not doing their job & court cases are pending.
However I agree that no raw product (table or bait) should be imported from SE Asian sewers

It was a stupid way of letting imports into Australia. Cooked prawns were no threat in regards to white spot, so those imports came in with the shell on.
But in the governments wisdom, raw prawns were allowed in, so long as they were peeled. Go Figure.
Warnings were provided by prawn farmers a decade ago, but those warnings fell on deaf ears.

So young Billy buys some peeled prawns to use for bait, and the rest is history.
David

Is stupid given you can't buy live NZ mussels because of quarantine. Rather trust the Kiwi's over the SE Asian imports.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

I was talking to an inspector about the issue and he said some of the Australian caught prawns are shipped offshore for processing and then when they were returned there was the odd carton of prawns that were not caught in Australia mixed in, and marked to allow the importer to distinguish that carton from the others.
Iain

Chappie, that is a bollocks story. The quarantine people admitted to allowing prawns into Australia with small amounts of white spot.

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Originally Posted by Lovey80

Chappie, that is a bollocks story. The quarantine people admitted to allowing prawns into Australia with small amounts of white spot.

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It was more than a small amount.

Independent tests showed that something like 85% coming in were infected.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moonlighter

It was more than a small amount.

Independent tests showed that something like 85% coming in were infected.

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I stand corrected. There was a link in the old thread where they determined this as low risk. They need to fire all that had a role in allowing white spot in then ban all imports from affected countries.