Aunty Patsy Quayle and Cheryl Blore, 2020
In December 2020, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the Department of Primary Industries released 60,000 fish into the Barka (Darling) River as a response to the Menindee Fish Kill event where an estimated 1 million fish died in January 2019.
In 2019, twenty surviving Murray Cod from the Barka River were brought to the Narrandera Fisheries Centre (Department of Primary Industries) on Wiradjuri Country, to heal and breed in 2020.
Over October, November and December 2020, we worked with Matt McLellan from the Narrandera Fisheries Centre and a group of First Nation boys from the Clontarf Academy at Narrandera High. Every week we tended the fish and helped prepare them for being released back on Country.
Before the 'official' release of 60,000 Cod, we travelled to Menindee and worked with local Barkindji Elders, Aunty Patsy Quayle, Aunty Cheryl Blore, Aunty Barbara Quayle, plus local river rangers, to undertake a cultural release of 200 Cod.
The following video shares our Menindee experience.
A further outcome of this project was shared in Narrandera in 2021 at Wirramarri: Long Way From Home
This project is being supported by Create NSW, Sidney Myer Fund, Department of Primary Industries, National Museum of Australia, Bendigo Bank Narrandera, Clontarf Foundation, Narrandera High School.
