Take me to the River
Join social ecologist and river restoration expert Dr. Siwan Lovett in conversations about the ideas, issues and opportunities that relate to our connections with nature and each other. This podcast offers open, honest and practical insights for us to reflect on in our daily lives.
Take me to the River
Why your pet fish doesn't belong in the river, with Dr Mariah Millington
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What if your pet fish could wreak havoc on Australia's ecosystems? Turns out, that's precisely what they'll do if they end up in our waterways.
In today's episode, Dr. Siwan Lovett sits down with freshwater fish biologist Dr Mariah Millington, who reveals the surprising capacity for non-native pet fish to damage and degrade Australia's freshwater ecosystems, and particularly the native fish that live within them. Discover how to best dispose of dead pet fish, how common goldfish and other popular pet species can grow to alarming sizes and cause severe ecological damage when released, Mariah's undercover research into forums and marketplaces on the Deep web, and some of the specific species which pose significant ecological risks to Australian native fish, whose populations are already estimated to be less than 10% of their pre-colonisation numbers.
Mariah pulls back the curtain on the underground world of illegal fish trade and the challenges in regulating this thriving online market. You'll be intrigued by the prevalence of pet fish in Australian households and the secretive subculture of basement breeders who bypass legal regulations through platforms like Facebook and Gumtree. From the complexities of transporting fish over long distances to the hidden layers of the web where these transactions occur, our conversation uncovers the dark side of the pet fish industry and the ecological risks it poses.
The threats don't stop there—Tilapia and other invasive fish species are making alarming inroads into Australia's waterways. Tilapia in particular continue to head further south. Learn about the reproductive strategies that make tilapia particularly dangerous and the potential for hybridization to increase their invasive potential. Mariah discusses the importance of public education, biosecurity measures, and promoting native fish conservation initiatives.
This episode is a compelling call to action for protecting our native fish populations and the ecosystems they depend on.
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As a child you don't understand the way that could impact anything. The diseases and things the fish carry pass through the water and if they don't get filtered out properly it just goes straight into our rivers and things. But it's something that I don't think people were taught when we were younger that that wasn't the way to do it. You know, burying a fish doesn't seem the natural kind of way, because they're fish, they belong in the water, but they don't belong in our water. They belong in the water, but they don't belong in our water.
Speaker 2:They're not from around here so they don't need to go into our waterways. Hello and welcome to Take Me to the River, where we're sharing stories and inspiring hope with extraordinary people who care for our rivers. I'm your host, dr Shu-Anne Lovett. Today, I'm talking to Mariah Millington. Mariah's a freshwater fish biologist and her research focuses on non-native fish invasions and impacts in Australian freshwater systems. She is a woman who loves to ask questions and she recently received her doctorate from Griffith University. Her thesis was looking at the online trade of potentially invasive freshwater fish and the key factors into how they're being introduced into our waterways.
Speaker 2:The number of native freshwater fish in Australia are estimated to be less than 10% of pre-European levels, with several factors contributing to this decline. Local extinctions have been occurring for several species and we now have many of our native fish populations at risk. One of the most significant challenges we face are the impacts of non-native fish on our native fish. Currently, there's 27 pet fish species yes, that's right pet fish species established in rivers and lakes around Australia, and they're things like goldfish. These threaten our native fish, their habitats and the rivers we care so much about. With hundreds of species of freshwater fish in our pet stores and in fish tanks across Australia. We need to be thinking about the impact this could possibly have on our native fish.
Speaker 2:In our conversation with Mariah, we find out how she went undercover so that she could work through the deep web where a lot of these trades of non-native fish occur. And these fish, whether they're small or large, have an impact on the environments that our native fish rely upon. They often eat the food that our native fish need and sometimes even eat the babies of our native fish. So this is a huge problem With hundreds of species of freshwater pet fish in pet stores and fish tanks across Australia. We need to raise our awareness about how, when a fish dies, or even if it's alive, you don't throw your fish in the river, and you most certainly don't flush it down the toilet. Well, mariah, it's wonderful to have you here with us today and with this great title Don't Throw your Pet Fish in the River. And here's why. How did you come to be looking at pet fish?
Speaker 1:It all felt a bit accidental in the best kind of way. I fell into it after meeting Bonnie Holmes, who works in biosecurity Queensland, and she asked me to look into some grey list information. And I misinterpreted that as the grey list, which is a big middle ground for legislation in Australia, but she meant just publications that hadn't been actually physically published yet. So a bit of an accident. But research for me always felt like the right path. My mom said when I was little I'd hound her with questions on everything around me and she had to start buying, you know, those big, chunky encyclopedia books back in the 90s because we didn't have a computer or the internet back then, just so she could figure out what the answer was for everything. So research always felt the right kind of path and fit for me.
Speaker 1:And then, going into Griffith, I was able to look at a ton of different animals and plants, but fish kind of stuck out for me a lot, mostly when I went out into Narren Lake and did field work. It was just after a really big flood up north and the water had slowly started to trickle into the lake and you could actually see as it was coming into the dry riverbed and that lake area fish right on the front. It was fascinating to see them right at the very beginning of that flood border. So for me that was kind of the turning point that went, wow, these are some amazing Australian natives moving down our rivers and things. So the passion sparked from there. And then having some really fantastic lecturers who were really passionate about their own research and things, so that was the fish world for me. Was I got hooked?
Speaker 2:literally, Literally hooked on fish. Yes, and so Griffith University does a lot of work on our native fish. When we use the term pet fish, what sort of fish have you been looking at? Because they're not necessarily our natives, are they no pet?
Speaker 1:is any kind of tropical freshwater is my field. So anything from goldfish to the cichlids, the six-foot alligator, gar, things like the native catfish from South America, any kind of pet fish you can buy to keep at home for non-food purposes I know some people do buy things like goldfish to eat, but I just look at them from a pet perspective.
Speaker 2:So goldfish to eat? You wouldn't get a lot of food out of the goldfish that I tend to see in the aquarium. Do they grow them at home?
Speaker 1:Well, so goldfish grow as big as their tank. So if you release them into the ponds and rivers and things, they can get to dinner plate size. So 30 centimetres or bigger. So that's why it's important to keep them out of our waterways, because they'll just keep growing and growing or bigger.
Speaker 2:So that's why it's important to keep them out of our waterways because they'll just keep growing and growing. So in your research, these fish like we have that joke about fish being flushed down the toilet, but do people actually do that?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I have to say, unfortunately, I was one of those as a kid.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, this isn't a confessions show.
Speaker 1:No, don't, don't dub me in, but as a, as a child, you don't. You don't understand the, the way that could impact anything. The diseases and things the fish carry pass through the water and if they don't get filtered out properly, it just goes straight into our rivers and things. But it's something that I don't think people were taught when we were younger that that wasn't the way to do it. You know, burying a fish doesn't seem doesn't seem the natural kind of way, because they're fish, they belong in the water. But they don't belong in our water. They're not from around here, so they don't need to go into our waterways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a good point. You're right, because it does feel weird burying a goldfish. You'd think it should be out free in the water. So, Mariah, in your work is there a particular type of fish that's popping up in our rivers and waterways?
Speaker 1:Great question. It seems to be mostly cichlids coming up. Recently there was a lot of Cyprinidae, which is the goldfish, the guppies, the Siamese fighting kind of coming up everywhere, but cichlids seem to be the more predominant now. Things like jaguar cichlids, which is these quite large fish that are brown and white, that are predatory, and they're popping up in the Cairns area They've just naturalised there. Cichlids such as the peacock bass as well they haven't naturalised but they're coming up and things like jackdempsy, which are named after the boxers. They are quite aggressive. They're becoming more and more of a problem up and down the eastern side of Australia, but also farther north as well, along the northern area too.
Speaker 2:So when you say cichlid, is that like a species or a family name? Are there different sorts of cichlids from what I'm hearing? Do they have particular features?
Speaker 1:Yes, so the cichlids is the cichlidae family and it's just the grouping. Cichlid is what the pet fish owners will know them by, and the sellers and things. It's like roses. So roses is the group that everyone's quite familiar with. That's the group of plants, and you can go down to the species as well. So you could say, oh, it's this type of rose, that type of rose. So I could say a peacock bass cichlid. Or I could say a jack dempsey cichlid, that kind of yeah.
Speaker 2:In terms of pets, how many people have fish as pets? Is it sort of a common pet for Australians to have?
Speaker 1:Yes, pets fish are the most numerous kept in Australia. It's the number one. We have more pet fish kept in homes in Australia than dogs and cats combined. So it's really common, yep.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I really wouldn't have thought that. And how on earth did you do that research? How did you find that out?
Speaker 1:There's this fantastic pet, the Pet Federation of Australia that does the surveys around and that's how they have it. So, thankfully, I didn't have to go and survey a huge pool of Australians to figure out what fish they have. So that data's there, thankfully. But there's something like 20 million pet fish kept in Australia, and that doesn't include what is in pet stores, that's being bred in basements and things as well. So we have a really big population of fish here in Australia and not many of those are in our waterways yet, but there's a huge potential for them to get out quite easily.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm amazed. I had no idea that that was the case, and I just caught on to something then about people breeding in basements. Can you tell me a bit more about what's happening there?
Speaker 1:Yes, so backyard breeders is what you technically generally hear when you think about dog breeding and cat breeding and things. But we say basement breeders because a lot of people have really retrofitted their basements out to breed these fish and in Australia it's becoming more and more popular. There's the influx of people moving on to the online marketplace, so Facebook people selling through Facebook marketplace, gumtree there are auction sites and things you can go to, as well as in-person ones they have from different schools and community halls and things, but it's becoming more common for people to start selling it. It's a good way to make money, but unfortunately it isn't in Queensland at least that's where most of my research was based. You need to have a business ABN, and so it becomes kind of a gray area as well, because it shouldn't be legally occurring but there's no real consequences for it as well.
Speaker 2:Wow. So in terms of the regulatory environment, then what I'm hearing is a lot of people are just sort of bypassing that and using social media and other sites to actually start trading fish.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes. That was what most of my doctorate at Griffith was about was looking at that online world of trade. It's something that we don't really understand very well. There's no real dedicated monitoring in Australia for a team or even a person who sits down and regularly looks at what's available online for sale, and what I found was shocking. So we have protected sighties listed fish that shouldn't even be in Australia, let alone being sold on Facebook and other sites. We have invasive species, so things that are already here that are already causing harm to our natives or potentially causing harm, and we also have risky fish, so things that we know have caused issues overseas or are just really suitable for our waterways, that are really commonly sold online and things and it's a really big market. After I stepped down from finishing that thesis work last year, it's kind of ended. No one's really looking at it anymore, so it'll be interesting to dial back in and see where it's going. I can see it moving more and more up after COVID especially when things shifted online.
Speaker 2:So I'm still getting my head around fish being traded. How do they get posted?
Speaker 1:to people. A lot of it is in-person pickups, so there are tons of Facebook groups and Gumtree listings where people can come and pick them up, but there's no regulation really on what kind of animals you can send through the post for fish based on the legality. So they don't necessarily post us and look and go, oh, that's a fish you shouldn't be having. It's just a fish that gets sent and a fish only needs a very small amount of water in a bag and then the rest is 70% oxygen and the fish can survive for several days in that bag. So it's quite easy to send things around. And one of the longest sales that I recorded was from Toowoomba, all the way up to north of Cairns, so someone was shipping a fish from that far. So it's really really long distance sales and we saw multiple reports as well People willing to drive from Melbourne up to Brisbane to get illegal fish as well. So things like alligator gar and things that aren't legal in Australia, people are willing to go for long lengths to get these fish.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. This is a whole other subculture that I had no idea about, and so the web is where a lot of this is happening, and I know in some of your work you were looking at different layers of the web. I mean, I've heard about the dark web, but is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 1:So there's three levels. There's the surface web. Anyone can access it. It's something you can find easily on Google or DuckDuckGo, whatever kind of platform you use search engine you use for that. There's the dark web, and then there's the deep web, and the dark web is the one we generally think about, the black market kind of thing. Then the deep web is the level above that and is the level above that, and so that's the layer where you need to have an invitation, such as a Facebook group, that kind of process, or you need to have an account to access it. And that's where I looked at mostly was at that deep web level Things where it's not as easy to put on robotic kind of scanning processes to automatically capture the data. It's something that is really gritty. You have to be there, you have to screenshot it, you have to record it before it goes missing to get that kind of information.
Speaker 2:So did you have to go undercover, Mariah?
Speaker 1:I did. I loved it, a lot of ethical things around that, but it's hard because how can you accurately collect that kind of information when you have to tell people that you're monitoring them? So it's a difficult situation that is becoming more and more explainable and justifiable as we're looking more into it. But no, it was. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. It was fantastic. I had my own account and all day it was just scrolling Facebook, but in a good way, just looking at not not not memes and things, just looking at what fish people were selling, and sometimes there was, you know, there was a lot of really interesting things popping up. Sometimes it was just goldfish for 10 or 20 posts.
Speaker 2:Okay, so goldfish started to get a bit old after a while Sometimes, yeah. So what are some of the most exotic fish that you've seen that are being sort of traded, yeah?
Speaker 1:So the Cytis listed was really interesting. So the zebra pleco, which is a type of catfish. It's got these really fantastic black and white stripes and the vividity of those is really appealing. But they are Cytis listed. They're not allowed to be traded without a certificate. I also saw things like alligator gar which are being sold for at their 5, 10 centimeters, which is when they're a baby, they're fry, but they can grow up to six feet and people might not realize that when they're buying it. Paku as well, They've got these teeth that look like human molars, so your back teeth, and they use them for crushing nuts and things. So really fascinating fish, but seeing a lot of really cool cichlids as well, really bright colours. Some of them can rival reef fish, if I can say that.
Speaker 2:Wow, yes, yeah. So I think for listeners, we'll actually put a few photos up of these fish with a very clear warning do not buy them and certainly do not put them in our rivers. So let's move to our rivers, because we do have quite a few invasive fish in our rivers. So many of us hear constantly about European carp and they are having a big environmental impact, but there's another fish called the tilapia, which I know that you know a lot about. So could you tell us a little bit about the tilapia and where it's come from and why it's potentially a big issue for us?
Speaker 1:Yes, so tilapia refers to a couple of different species, so it's the Aureochromis family, but also the tilapia family as well. It's sometimes known as the black mangrove cichlids, the red-bellied tilapia. There's several that are here in Australia, not physically but in hybrid form, and they're spreading quite rapidly up the coast and further south as well, so up to Cairns, and we even have one down in New South Wales now, just around the Brunswick-Hairs area. So it is slowly moving south, which is quite concerning because they do have the ability to tolerate those lower temperatures. So they could get into things like the Murray-Darling Basin, which would be a major issue, and getting down out into our floodplain areas as well could be a major issue as well.
Speaker 1:They're really good at muddying up the water. So what they do is they build these nests, which is not with sticks like a bird, but just these shallow pools and depressions, they call them in the mud, but to make those they remove the plants, they remove the substrate, they muddy the water, clouding it up, and they can pack a lot. In a small area you can get a lot of nests right up to each other and they are territorial, but if there's a density issues they can really become a big problem and they remove the food availability, they remove the plants and mudding up the water, also issues of eutrophication and things and healthy drinking water for us people as well as for animals and plants. So they could become quite a big problem further south in the basin.
Speaker 2:And I mean we know that European carp are also bioengineers. They're an amazing. I mean you've got European carp are also bioengineers. They're an amazing. I mean you've got to admire them as a fish, like they can breathe in muddy water, but they also tend to dig at the bank. So, yes, thinking about tilapia and carp really does make me feel quite concerned. The other thing I've learned about them, which listeners may not know, is that they're mouth brooders. Can you explain what a mouth brooder is?
Speaker 1:Yes, so instead of the male and the female releasing their eggs and sperm into the water, what they do is the female has her eggs in her mouth and the male will fertilise those, and then she carries them in her mouth as a form of parental care, and it means that she has a smaller clutch, so fewer eggs, but a higher likelihood of them surviving, because she's physically protecting them with her body and she doesn't eat for a while while she's doing it.
Speaker 1:So it's really that motherly love that is giving them that advantage over our natives that release them straight into the water. And it's a problem because one of the things as we were saying earlier about burying a fish versus flushing a fish or even binning a fish if you take a tilapia out of the water and you don't bury it high enough, or if you just put it on the bank, any water that comes up and touches that mother's mouth could put her eggs she's carrying straight back into our river. And that's why it's so important to bury them above the high water line or bin them, because that mouth breeding does give them that really good advantage of transferring their eggs later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess one of the things that's happening with these fish is that you wouldn't normally expect to find tilapia in cooler waters, but they seem to be able to adapt and so that adaptation process are we looking at it, taking years, or actually much quicker, so that they could survive in much cooler temperatures?
Speaker 1:There's this process called hybrid vigor. So hybrid vigor is when two different species, they hybridise, they make offspring and they both take aspects of the parents and they themselves become better than their parents. And because we have several different types of tilapia species in Australia, what they're concerned about is them hybridising and becoming cold water tolerable. I'm not sure on how fast it could occur, but just the fact that it's a problem here and a potential means that it could become an issue. Just like the problem with carp hybridising and then becoming a more virulent strain, it's a problem that we could have with tilapia as well, and they can survive quite low temperatures already. So moving further south into those colder areas, those temperate areas down south, won't be a problem for them.
Speaker 2:And what about some of our little tiny invasive fish like gambusia? Are there a few more of them on the horizon that might possibly go into our waterways that you've examined?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are a lot of smaller fish coming through. We just had Siamese fighting fish established up north, or the reports of it, in the Darwin area, and if we look at the water temperature averages across Australia this is something that I looked at in the last report I did for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries they should not be able to survive anywhere in Australia, they should not be able to establish. But they have. They've established and they're breeding in their thousands and so we're underprepared for these smaller fish because we're overlooking them. We're thinking about these bigger predators, like the tilapia, like the jaguar cichlids, like the peacock bass, all these bigger ones, but we're overlooking these smaller ones that could have more damage because they could compete better with our little natives looking for that resource of the things.
Speaker 2:Yes, our little natives are little, and you know, I know, up around the Cooma area we've actually purpose-built a river for our little stocky galaxids, which were under threat from fires, and so the thought of all these other ones coming in, as I say, it does make you tremble a little when you have looked at the deep web and looked at the sorts of fish that people are buying. Are people buying them because they're pretty, and what's the level of awareness that these fish could potentially harm our native ecosystem? Or is that sort of not really a joining the dots exercise? That's happened yet.
Speaker 1:That biosecurity understanding. A lot of people don't realise they have a biosecurity obligation in Australia to not release these and their understanding of these fish could become a problem. There doesn't seem to be that connection. A lot of people feel guilty about needing to euthanize their fish if they become sickly and there was a study in Canada because there aren't very many in Australia on people's motivations for release, but a study in Canada that found people were more likely to release their fish into a river because they felt like it would be a good burial place for the fish rather than putting it in bins and things. So I don't believe there's that yet understanding of wow, these fish can actually do harm to our environment and it's an educational issue.
Speaker 1:Really there's no targeted big campaigns throughout Australia. There's smaller ones and they seem to be good on some aspect. But we need that targeted information in pet stores, eco-labelling especially, so that is providing information to consumers. So customers and people like that before purchase so they understand the size the fish could grow to, whether they're aggressive, how they get on with other different fish, how long they live as well is a big problem. Some of these fish can live for decades. You might not be ready for a 15-year commitment with these fish. So it's something that is really lacking in a lot of pet stores and it's not compulsory in Australia. It's a participation style, and one of the things I found as well in my research because I looked at ecolabeling was that a lot of the information being put out was incorrect. So people are saying this fish lives for five years, this fish lives for seven years, when actually it can live up to 18.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a much longer term commitment. And the other thing that really struck me about what you said there was it's a biosecurity obligation, dead or alive, because, as you said, with the tilapia for instance, if the eggs make it, even if the fish is dead. If the eggs touch water, then they're away and presumably if you flush one of these fish, if it's dead, into the waterway, if it's got some sort of disease, it could pass that on.
Speaker 1:They already are. So we have found well, we haven't, sorry, I've found research where diseases from things like goldfish and tilapia are already passing on to our native fish. So pathogens, parasites, they're already being passed along. And one of the bigger issues we have is just we have that lack of pre-invasion information about our ecosystems, about our fish. What's a native? What are the native parasites to these fish here? What are the food web structure? We don't understand really a pristine environment before the fish come in. So we can't really deftly identify what's happened, what's changed. So it's difficult to kind of draw a line of where these impacts are. But we are seeing some issues already. So how many more are we not understanding because we just don't understand pre-invasion?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a problem for us with things like the redfin perch, which carries a particular virus called the EHN virus that affects Macquarie perch, which is a native fish. So you're spot on there in terms of we're sort of tending to play catch up because it's sort of happening and we're trying to react. I know with tilapia that we are trying certainly that this fish doesn't get into the Murray-Darling Basin. Can you tell me a bit more about the work that you're now doing with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority looking at this particular fish?
Speaker 1:Yes. So I have been commissioned by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to produce a 10-year exclusion strategy for them, so 2025 to 2035. So the plan to try and keep tilapia out of the basin. We haven't had any close calls or anything. It's been fantastic in the basin, really strong education system to keep them from moving down. But we need a new plan. The last one expired and it'll just be carried through those kind of principles. So targeting things like education is especially important.
Speaker 1:There was a study that came out a few years ago that compared Queensland to New South Wales education understanding around biosecurity for tilapia and unfortunately the resources for New South Wales have been quite poor. A lot of the information has gone into Queensland because that's where tilapia are. But the issue is, as tilapia move down, we need to increase the education down south as well. So that's a really important part of keeping the fish out and also monitoring and detecting. So if we do have a fish pop up, we know what to do, we know who to contact, we know whose resources are available in the area and we know what the high risk catchments, the high risk rivers and things are. So we can go and check those regularly to make sure they're not spreading, because most of the introductions in Australia have been deliberate choices by people, and that's the issue. They're making these wrong choices about, releasing them, and that's we need to target. Most of our efforts is keeping these fish from being moved by people.
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't know that many realise, but that's actually how. We have a number of our species where people have said, oh, this is a great recreational fish, I'm going to pop it in my local stream. It might be a trout, it might be a whole range of other fish that, yeah, they may be fantastic to catch, but they're not really meant to be in our waterways when we're spending so much time and effort trying to keep our native fish alive. So if you were running an education campaign, for instance, who would you be targeting? Is it wreck fishers? Is it at the school level? Is there a particular age group? What sort of profile is there of the person that we need to be talking to?
Speaker 1:You're spot on there that it's the kids and the wreck fishers. Kids take their information, they learn home, they teach their parents. It's easier to talk to children about it and then they take it home rather than trying to convince an adult to change their ways. But recreational fishers as well. We're not blaming them, of course. Most of them are doing what they need to do. Most of them are going out there. They're fishing in the right places for the right fish. They're cleaning things before they go and coming back for the right fish. They're cleaning things before they go and coming back, so they're not transplanting eggs or anything like that. It's just the few who ruin it for the many. It's that saying, but just that understanding that just because it's a fun fish to fish for in other parts of the world, it's not right for Australia. We've got other great natives we can be targeting instead. Or you can target things like carp and redfin perch to help remove them from our environment and do your part.
Speaker 1:But yes, it's the school kids and the recreational fishers that really need that information. And part of the education outreach program I did for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority two years ago was part of recreational fisher targeted program on Facebook and what it was was comparing the juvenile tilapia with some juvenile natives, and some people couldn't see the difference. They couldn't identify which was a tilapia and which was a native. And so there is that level of understanding that we need to improve, because there's been a lot of education on the adults. We all know what a big adult tilapia looks like. They're big and they're black and red. They've got those sharp, thin looking things, large lips, but it's the juveniles, because they do look similar to some of our natives. So it's that kind of level of understanding we need to increase too.
Speaker 2:And I think also I know that I found people actually want to learn and they want to understand. So when you're actually saying to someone, we want to teach you how to identify native and non-native fish, that's a much better approach than saying we need to let you know why you must not do anything if you see this fish, which is a much more heavy-handed approach. So had you looked overseas at all at campaigns where other countries have tried to raise awareness about invasive fish? Are there other models from overseas we should be looking at?
Speaker 1:There are a lot of campaigns and things, and a lot of them seem to be military-based, so that not military as in the United States Army or whatever, but more so military messaging so it's your responsibility to fight this war on fish, and that's just not something that really resonates with a lot of Australians. So it's a different type of viewpoint here that we need to be looking at. It's the compassion side, it's the bandwagon. We're all a community, we're all together. That's how we are done here. We stick together. So it is a bit different from overseas, but there's not many tilapia-specific campaigns overseas either. They're really focused on other non-natives as well. So it's difficult to kind of borrow from overseas. It's really we're starting from the roots for some of these things.
Speaker 2:But what I love about that insight is that, yeah, I've never found that a military approach works in Australia. We do not respond to that, but we do respond well to we're all part of the same community. Let's work on this together. It's a much more inclusive, non-blaming approach. Rather than you're the problem, make people part of the solution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because for many, they're not the reason that it's happening. It's just a few people who have ruined it for many, and so we do need to unite to help remove this issue from Australia.
Speaker 2:And often those people that have released them have done so unintentionally, not realising the impact that releasing the fish have. So we've talked about eco-labelling and we've talked about really raising awareness of people prior to buying these fish about the fact that it's a longer term commitment and that there's a biosecurity issue as well. Is there other things that we need to be doing in terms of this threat that ornamental fish might pose?
Speaker 1:The switch to natives would be a really great push. I know some aquarium shops are actually having native displays now, rather than having these ornamental ones, because we do have some really beautiful natives here, the rainbow fish. They're called rainbow fish for a reason. Yes, they are beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then our smaller ones as well. But even things like barramundi. You can get a black and white panda barramundi. You know they do get larger, but how beautiful are those? And golden about golden barramundi as well. So we do have some beautiful natives. So, switching our thinking from we need to have these flashy fish from overseas and going well, what about some natives? The Angfa Society in Australia, which is the Australian and New Guinea Fisheries Fishers Association. They have an education campaign in school, a few schools where they go in, and they actually have the kids raise some natives. The kids understand a conservation effort, they're seeing what kind of natives are, and so it's a really great thing to do. So rather than raising a goldfish at home with your kids, why not choose a?
Speaker 2:native. Yeah, that's a great idea, and I know that my local aquarium does have some natives. I have seen some southern pygmy perch in there. I've seen a few Murray cod and so it's nice to see them in there, just providing that they look that Murray Cod could actually get quite big. It's not really for the fish tank at home.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and that eco-labelling, then, is really important to have the information. So if you do buy a fish without talking to someone first, you're prepared, you're not having to go home and do all this research after you've bought the fish, you go in, you can make your choice. It's an informed choice, just like when we're buying anything else. So smoking, you've got the things on the packets, nutrition labels and things. Understanding, being informed, making those informed choices is really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you started off in research asking lots of questions and I can tell you've got a very inquiring mind and you've ended up in fish. What's been a really memorable moment for you in your career so far and you're only just starting out, really but what's been really memorable for you?
Speaker 1:All the conferences. I have to say it's been fantastic to connect with all the other fishy people. I had a great time at the Native Fish Forum talking about the ornamental field, because it felt like something that people didn't really understand was a problem, particularly for the Murray-Darling Basin area and things and there was a lot of people that came and said, wow, we didn't realise that this was an issue. So it's, the conversations with people has been really shining. I've been to about 20 conferences already in my short career and it's been always so great to see people go, wow, this is something we need to consider. This is something that we need to put more research into to understand better.
Speaker 2:And do you have a soft spot for a native fish in Australia?
Speaker 1:Oh, I have to say, the Bozeman's rainbows, the lovely blue and yellow, yeah, beautiful, beautiful fish, and they're a plucky little fish as well. All the rainbows, they all have conservation statuses, but they're still plodding along quite well, most of them.
Speaker 2:So the rainbow fish for me, oh great. Well, we'll try and find a picture of that to put along with the show notes. So we're getting to the end of our conversation, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you so much. I want to ask you three questions that we ask everybody. Do you have a favourite river or a waterway or body of water?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd have to say Narin Lakes. It's out near Lightning Bridge, so the northern New South Wales and that was where I was really on country, really doing that work. It was a plant-based one, but the number of animals I saw and the education and learning I got from the Aboriginal range is about just even the stars in that area, learning about the Milky Way, just being there, it just felt so connected. So the Narren Lakes area is definitely a favourite part of Australia for me, but there are a lot. It's hard to choose one, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is because we're so blessed with so many different river environments here as well. And so this leads on to my next one, which is where do you feel most connected to country and to nature? And it sounded like Narren Lakes was one of those places.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's been a little while since I've been out there so I'd love to go back when it's in flood so I can see the fish. But just in anywhere outside, really in the just getting out in a park, I'm down in the Nepean River area. Beautiful down there along the rivers, just even if it's not in a river, next to a river is great. Hearing that getting out onto the land.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. And finally, Mariah, what is driving you to do what you do? Good question.
Speaker 1:I think it's curiosity if I can say that.
Speaker 2:You certainly can.
Speaker 1:Just finding out, just seeing. Why is that like that? Why are we having this? What is there?
Speaker 2:It's just the why I think you remind me so much of my little brother. I did a lot of sort of care for him. I'm nine years older than him and at one stage he just kept saying but why, but, why, but why? Thank you so much for spending some time with us. I know that our listeners are going to really enjoy this podcast episode and, for anyone interested, we'll put some show notes to go along with Mariah's talk this afternoon and you can look up and find out even more about the work she's doing. So thank you, mariah, really appreciate having you on the show and we will keep in touch. Thank you, mariah. I really appreciate having you on the show and we will keep in touch, thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:You can subscribe to Take Me to the River wherever you get your podcasts. Visit arrcau forward slash podcast to learn more. That's arrcau forward slash podcast. We acknowledge and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional and continuing custodians of the country and the rivers on which we live, learn, love and play. We respect and learn from elders, past, present and emerging, valuing their knowledge, insights, cultures and connections to the waterways we all love and care for.