Asking innocent questions can lead to all sorts of trouble, and sometimes useful outcomes. A classic example occurred at one meeting of the Abalone Fishery Advisory Committee.

In contrast to some of the other Fishery Advisory Committees I am involved with, the Abalone FAC is usually pretty straightforward. Arguably one of the most successful fisheries anywhere, management and industry generally work together to ensure that it is sustainable.

Sure, there are problems, such as an over-concentration of fishers in the southeast of Tasmania and the resultant potential for overfishing. And there is a worrying lack of fishery independent population estimates. However, these issues are well recognised and progress is being made towards finding a solution.

In any case, Abalone FAC meetings are generally pretty straightforward and predictable affairs. But things suddenly became exciting when a recent meeting turned to the question of allowing the importation of small abalone by fish processes for re-export.

Most of the discussion revolved around ensuring that this would not provide an opportunity for undersized Tasmanian abalone to be sold legally. Importation of larger abalone has been going on for some time with no apparent problems. So far so good we all thought, and were just about to finalise the decision when I asked THE QUESTION.

In all innocence, I simply asked whether there had been any assessment of the risk of importing exotic disease organisms along with the abalone.

I must say that both the answer and the outcome were totally unexpected. I had assumed that this would have been a natural question to ask and one that would have been addressed prior to the current practice of importing outlining for processing. As no one had mentioned during the discussion, I thought that I had better just make sure. It was fortunate that I did.

Investigation of the issue by Marine Resources in response to my question uncovered some interesting results. It turns out that no formal assessment of disease risk had been made. In fact, the legal status of current imports of abalone, with regard to disease management, appears to be questionable. And the risk of importing an exotic disease poses a real threat to Tasmania's lucrative abalone fishery. It may also threaten a variety of other native marine organisms.

One manager described investigating this issue as opening a whole new can of worms. Hopefully this process will help keep exotic diseases out of Tasmania's marine environment.

Jon Bryan
jonbryan@southcom.com.au