More toxic mud to be dumped in the bay
Over the past 70 years millions of tonnes of contaminated mud have been dredged from the Port of Melbourne and dumped in Port Phillip Bay. Meanwhile, the sand flathead population has declined 80% since the 1960s and we don’t know why. The Port of Melbourne Corporation is currently seeking Commonwealth and state government approvals to [...]
A fresh approach to ciggie litter
Cigarette butts accounted for 37% of litter items removed from City of Port Phillip beaches on Clean Up Australia Day 2011 by the Port Phillip Clean Beaches Coalition. Apart from the fact that ciggie filters don’t biodegrade and are laced with a range of toxic substances, these little suckers are so small they scoot straight [...]
Sand flathead & mud ghost shrimp – why have they gone?
Populations of sand flathead (once considered the most common fish in the Bay) and mud ghost shrimp (once the most common benthic organism in the Bay) both declined dramatically between the 1970s and 1990s. Although a study is underway to investigate if overfishing caused the flathead decline, there appears to have been no attempt to [...]
