The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) are offering a trip to Montebello Islands, in conjunction with Montebello Island Safaris.
To be entered into the draw all you need to do is send in your snapper skeletons, so you can help DPIRD answer the question - how closely related are snapper from Esperance to those across the Great Australian Bight?
DPIRD is partnering with the Molecular Ecology Lab at Flinders University in South Australia in a national Australian Research Council project to investigate the relationships between snapper from Shark Bay to New Zealand.
The skeleton contains key biological information, such as length, age and sex.
Using powerful genomic tools to unlock the information hidden deep in snapper DNA, this project will help DPIRD to learn whether Esperance snapper are actually from Esperance and identify appropriate boundaries for the future management and stock assessment of snapper in WA and across Australia.
To do this, DPIRD's Send Us Your Skeletons team need 50 adult snapper skeletons from Esperance by the end of July 2020.
How to donate:
- Please donate the whole filleted skeleton (frame with the head and guts intact) if you can.
- Freeze the frame straight after filleting.
Label frames with:
- your name, phone number and email address (so we can send you research feedback and put your name in prize draws);
- the date of your capture; and
- the location of capture (ramp name and distance and bearing from ramp)
- Information you provide about the location of your catch is confidential.
Drop your snapper skeletons off at Moby Marine, Lot 84/46 Norseman Road Esperance (phone 9071 5765), or South East Fisheries, 8 Rogers Street Esperance (phone 9071 3235), and you will be in the draw for a trip to the Montebello Islands.
Contact david.fairclough@dpird.wa.gov.au for further information.