5 results
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2009-773
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Seafood CRC: dried WA seafood products for the Asian market: a pilot study

In 2009 Kingsun Bioscience Company, an international company with interests in the Japanese and Asian markets expressed an interest in investigating the possibility of drying WA seafood products for sale on the Asian market. WA seafood products of interest were those from sustainably managed...
ORGANISATION:
Curtin University
TAGS
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 2009-752
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Seafood CRC: overseas market access for shellfish

The oyster, scallop and mussel industries currently export product to the EU. Due to the periodic occurrence of Okadaic Acid (OA) and Saxitoxin (STX) group toxins in Australian shellfish the implementation of reduced regulatory levels would reduce the amount of product eligible for EU export....
ORGANISATION:
SARDI Food Safety and Innovation
Industry
PROJECT NUMBER • 1999-332
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Development of a national biotoxin strategy

In Australia aquaculture and wild harvest of shellfish is an economically important and growing industry. The safety of these products as a food source is of utmost importance from both public health and economic points of view. One of the potential problems faced by shellfish growers is...
ORGANISATION:
Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)
Environment
PROJECT NUMBER • 2014-032
PROJECT STATUS:
COMPLETED

Improved understanding of Tasmanian harmful algal blooms and biotoxin events to support seafood risk management

The 2012 Tasmanian biotoxin event represents a paradigm shift for seafood risk management in Tasmania and Australia as a whole. The causative dinoflagellates are extremely difficult to identify by routine plankton monitoring, and are toxic at very low cell concentrations (50-100 cells/L). Sampling...
ORGANISATION:
University of Tasmania (UTAS)
TAGS

Potential impact of low-frequency sound from seismic operations on benthic communities in the Gippsland Basin

Project number: 2014-041
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $85,000.00
Principal Investigator: Rachel Przeslawski
Organisation: Geoscience Australia
Project start/end date: 28 Feb 2015 - 30 Dec 2015
:

Need

Fisheries groups worldwide are concerned that seismic operations negatively affect catch rates within a given area [2, 7, 8]. Despite the paucity of in situ studies addressing this, several countries have adopted precautionary principles in their seismic survey approvals process based on potential impacts to commercially important species [4, 9, 10]. Australia has not yet done this, although the Commonwealth Fisheries Association nominated seismic surveys to be listed as a ‘key threatening process’ under the EPBC Act 1999 [11].

An increasing number of laboratory experiments are being conducted to investigate the effects of seismic airguns on marine organisms, but many of these incorporate intensities or durations of sound exposures that are unlikely to be encountered in the field, particularly for simulated signals in tanks. These studies may simplify their interpretation to simply show effect or no effect (e.g. [12]), where instead results should be interpreted in the context of realistic exposure scenarios and field conditions. This underscores an urgent need to conduct well-designed observational studies and sound monitoring before, during, and after seismic surveys. With this information in hand, stakeholders can develop, or further refine, precautionary policies according to the best information on species-specific responses to known exposure levels of low-frequency sound [13].

The Gippsland Basin is a hub of marine resource activity, including both fisheries and petroleum industries. Marine seismic surveys have been blamed for recent die-offs of scallops in the area [14], as well as mortality of other benthic invertebrates (Stuart Richey, personal communication). Several studies aimed to address this using catch rates and laboratory experiments, but to date no short-term effects ( 2 months) have been found [2, 5, 8]. In addition, none of these studies incorporated concurrent sound monitoring to quantify acoustic conditions at which negative effects may occur. The current study will build on these past studies to incorporate noise modelling and monitoring and non-invasive methods (i.e., AUV) to enable in situ monitoring at the level of communities and individual organisms.

Objectives

1. Model sound exposure from a seismic survey at various depths.
2. Measure sound at various depths before and during a seismic survey.
3. Collect seafloor imagery of the seafloor before and after a seismic survey at control and impact sites.
4. Quantify potential impacts of marine seismic surveys on scallops and other benthic organisms.
5. Collect quality-controlled environmental data (temperature, salinity, turbidity, substrate and seafloor characteristics) associated with seafloor images.
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