Hon Ken Baston MLC — Just imagine – a fish that was 84 years old

It was swimming in the ocean early last century and still alive and cruising Western Australia’s South Coast late last year – a Bight redfish that lived to 84 years of age.

Fisheries Minister Ken Baston said the discovery by WA researchers has set a new State record for long-lived fish.

The 60cm Bight redfish (Centroberyx gerrardi) was about average size when it was caught in November 2013.

“It’s not possible to tell the age of a fish from looking at it. So its age wasn’t discovered until its skeleton went under the microscope at the Department of Fisheries’ Hillarys research centre just recently,” Mr Baston said.

The skeleton was collected as part of a State Natural Resource Management office funded research project to assess the overall health of South Coast stocks.

Researchers from the Department of Fisheries, working in collaboration with Murdoch University’s Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, assessed the age of this female fish from examining the growth rings of its ear bones (or otoliths), much like the way that tree ages can be identified from a cross-section of trunk.

This redfish was born in 1929 when the Popeye comic was making its debut and the Academy Awards first started. It was swimming around when Philip Collier was WA’s Premier and James Scullin took over from Stanley Bruce as Australia’s Prime Minister, when WA celebrated its centenary and during the Great Depression.

The Minister said it was encouraging the research was being supported by recreational fishers and commercial fish processors on the South Coast, who have been donating fish frames of the required species with skeleton and head left intact after filleting.

Bight redfish is one of the key species being checked. The project is also looking at pink snapper, blue morwong and donated frames of three near shore finfish species; Australian herring, King George whiting and tailor.