SEA MULLET SHOALS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 126, 30 May 1935, Page 14

SEA MULLET SHOALS

AUSTRALIAN FISH HARVEST

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, May 17,

The coastal fishermen of New South Wales and Southern Queensland are reaping their annual harvest of sea mullet. These fish arrive on the south coast of New. South Wales early in April from somewhere in the depths of the Pacific Ocean and work their' way up the coast until now their vast shoals are on the north coast of New South Wales and on the southern coast of Queensland. They were off Sydney about a month ago, and fishermen in the seaside suburbs of Maroubra and La Perouse netted thousands of boxes of them, But despite the huge quantities caught and the many eaten by sharks, other large fish, and gulls, the numbers of the sea mullet never seem, to lessen, so that now, 5(50 miles from Sydney, they seem just as numerous as when they first reached the coast.

The sea mullet seek sanctuary jn the estuaries of coastal rivers where they spawn. In a good year they arrive in millions, their closely packed shoals making a . ready- banquet for other shoals of hungry sharks. Having found a sheltering estuary, the mullet spawns and., the young go up stream and remain .in fresh water until they are about half. grown, when they. return to the sea. Not a great deal is known about the life history of the sea mullet.

According to aboriginal lore; the present season of sea mullet in Queensland was indicated as a good one because of the presence of Blue Mountain parrots in large numbers along the coast. Mr. Marshall, ichthyologist at the Queensland museum, said that there was np apparent connection between the two, but it usually happened that the presence or absence of the parrots was an indication of a good or bad mullet season. It was one of those scientific coincidences which could not be_explained..,. : -.