WfHC - cover page (not to be used with pre-printed report ... - CSIRO

Marcus Barber: Does that happen at Oriners?
Paddy Yam: Might be. I‟ve seen that been happening here. I seen it last year at Emu. I
could see things. I said to Tony, „what that thing down there floating‟ „I don‟t know‟. So we
went down the bottom and there is a bloody big fish dying away. “Something wrong here,
all fish dying. Waste all the fish. They had a few leaves there, bark, [or] something else,
killing all the fish. “Oh that‟s it!” Because that Emu doesn‟t get dry. They say, them over
there, them young fellers, that maybe fish were too fat, maybe.
Marcus Barber: Was there rain?
Paddy Yam: It was dry eh! I come back and tell the mob here. What about all them dead
fish out there? „I don‟t know!‟ One bloke said well we got some dead over here too! Well,
we are going to lose all the fish. [That happened] last year.
Viv Sinnamon described how any sudden drop in oxygen levels can result in fish kills, and
this can be as a result of fresh water input during rain events or because of a sudden
turnover of the lagoon bottom. One reason for this turnover, and for the associated changes
in water quality, can be the behaviour of animals:
Marcus Barber: Is it muddy because of the animals, or is the mud coming from somewhere
else?
Philip Yam: I don‟t reckon, maybe the animals.
Viv Sinnamon: It is a clay bottom, its not light material.
Philip Yam: Yeah, it‟s a clay bottom.
Marcus Barber: And the animals are stirring it up?
Philip Yam: Yeah.
Jeff Shellberg: Pigs and cattle or just the crayfish?
Philip Yam: Just the crayfish and things.
Marcus Barber: The things living in it. They keep the water dirty?
Philip Yam: They probably just move around, circulate that coolness of the water from the
bottom, up to the top.
Louie Native: Start to cool it, then they stop, then start moving again.
Jeff Shellberg: They have to pass water past their gills, and if its stagnant they will move
around, keep the gills filled with oxygen.
Viv Sinnamon: all those motors under their tails, they keep moving like this.
Marcus Barber: Why do you think the redclaws 20 like it [at T-Bone waterhole]?
Philip Yam: I would not have a clue why they are all in there, all in there and no prawn. 21
Viv Sinnamon: It may be their tolerance is not as high as the crayfish, for dirty water. Their
tolerance of really silty nasty water isn‟t high, and [then there‟s] the temperature thing too.
Like, down in the creek there at the end of the year near Kowanyama, if you want to catch
those buggers, you go down under the sand, in the depressions, and they‟ll all be sitting
there in the nice cool water. Cherabin. I think they‟ve got a lower tolerance for turbidity, but
there might be also a food thing. Whatever it is, [perhaps] the lilies there that they eat. And
it might be microscopic. I don‟t know enough about it. It‟s intrigued us, because we do know
there‟s some places where people know if they want a feed of prawns, they‟ll go there and
they‟ll know they‟ll get it.
20
Redclaw and crayfish are local colloquial terms for Cherax quadricarinatus, the North Queensland
yabby.
21
Prawn is the local colloquial term for Macrobrachium rosenbergii, the giant, long-armed prawn
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
68