A ban on the movement of a bloodworm, prized by Sydney's recreational fishers, is crippling the live bait business in south-east Queensland.
Paul Dymock founded East Coast Live Bait 20 years ago and holds one of Queensland's 29 commercial licences to gather the marine worm, which is used to catch whiting, bream and flathead.
But the discovery of white spot disease (WSD) in northern Moreton Bay has hit Mr Dymock's business hard, with a two-year restriction on the movement of ocean-caught green prawns, yabbies and marine worms between Caloundra and the NSW border now in place.
"Our sales are down about 68 per cent due to our not being able to sell outside the zone," Mr Dymock said.
"We've all had to take on second jobs and it's not what we wanted to do, but it's just something that we have to do if we want to stay in this industry.
"We just can't survive on this wage alone."
Mr Dymock estimated his wages bill for the last financial year was between $140,000 and $190,000 less than before the biosecurity restrictions were imposed.
"I had eight guys digging seven days a week and now I've got four guys digging four days a week, so it's not good," he said.
The once-lucrative business, which he runs on the mud flats of Moreton Bay with his 18-year-old son Brandon, now has an uncertain future.
Mr Dymock called for compensation after tests confirmed the virulent WSD, which forced seven Logan prawn farms to de-stock, was still present in wild prawns in northern Moreton Bay.
The virus is not harmful to humans.
The Federal Government testing regime of green imported prawns has been tightened but the Agriculture and Fisheries department has not confirmed how it entered the country.
Mr Dymock said around 80 per cent of his catch of live bloodworms used to be sent to Sydney.
Harvesting the bloodworms is hard yakka, with the crew racing the low tide to wade hundreds of metres out onto the mud flat before mounding up a square wall and bailing out the water to dry the bed for digging with pitchforks.
"The bloodworms will go between $450-500 a kilogram in the shops and we sell them to the shops for about $250-300 a kilogram. We used to get more in Sydney so that was another loss for us," Mr Dymock said.
Martin Cowling, an industry veteran of 43 years, said the situation was "pretty gut-wrenching".
"All of a sudden it's like someone's pulled the rug out from under you. The amount of money we now earn, it's just not viable to continue the way we are," he said.
The commercial fishers said Moreton Bay provided the only reliable commercial source of bloodworms in Australia and they were yet to see a single worm affected by the virus.
"This has all sorts of repercussions on recreational fishing," Mr Cowling said.
"It affects pretty much everyone — all the people who go and chase bread-and-butter species — bream, whiting and flathead — to take home and get a feed of fish."
The cost of WSD to Queensland's commercial prawn farmers was estimated at $43 million and the devastating blow was somewhat softened by a $20 million compensation package from the Federal Government.
But there was no such plan for compensation for the live bait industry.
A spokesperson for the Federal Agriculture and Fisheries Department said compensation was a matter for Biosecurity Queensland.
But Biosecurity Queensland countered with this media response:
"The Queensland Government does not have the provision to provide compensation to the commercial fishers effected by WSD. We understand an external consultant is undertaking an economic impact assessment for commercial fishers. We will continue to work with them and support them where possible."
Paul Dymock said he wanted parity for live bait fishers.
"We haven't had any testing done on our worms, we've just been told that they carry the white spot virus and you're not allowed to send them outside the area. No-one's shown us any hard data," he said.
"Just some equality for us would be good to say 'Yeah, these do carry it, here's the proof'. That would be a start.
"It's been proven now that we're the hardest affected industry and there's been nothing done to help us so it's not really fair," Mr Dymock said.
A Biosecurity Queensland spokesperson said local bloodworms had been tested for white spot syndrome virus but, at the time of publication of this article, had not confirmed how many tests it had conducted, their location, and whether any had returned positive results.
"Nationally endorsed scientific literature has shown that polychaete worms, including bloodworms, can carry white spot syndrome virus and therefore present a risk of spreading white spot disease," the Department's spokesperson said.
