Natal provenance of Golden perch in the ACT

This scholarship paid to the University of Canberra will be used to fund an honours or masters student stipend and project operating cost. The stipend is to be paid to the student conducting a project examining the natal origins of the ACT wild Golden Perch populations. The student and project work will be supervised by Ben Broadhurst (0.05FTE in kind, University of Canberra), Mark Lintermans (0.05FTE in kind, University of Canberra), and Matthew Beitzel (Conservation and Research Unit, ACT Govt).

The ACT Government Research has identified that the Golden Perch population in the Murrumbidgee River in the ACT is entirely comprised of adult fish. Recent the numbers of Golden Perch have been falling in surveys and restricted to the downstream site in the ACT.
The project is to investigate the natal origins of the ACT wild Golden Perch population. This is critical in understanding the management of the recreational fishery in the ACT and how it relates to the region. Potential sources of this population that the project is to test include wild river spawned in the ACT or NSW but migrating upstream from NSW as adults, fish displaced from local ACT stocking or fish stocked into NSW and migrating. Due to the difficulty in collecting larval Golden Perch this project will utilise samples collected from adult fish. ACT Government collection of otoliths and fishgen genetic samples and data will be available to the project. Additional sample collection is expected as part of the project supported by both ACT government and UC.
The required output is an honours thesis submitted to the University of Canberra and a summary report submitted to the ACT Government. It is hoped that the findings of this research will be used to inform ACT Government fisheries management.