By Emma Pedler

ABC Eyre Peninsula

Topic: Fishing and Aquaculture Industry

Leon Van Weenen is a commercial fisher in South Australia.

In short:

A commercial fisher says his octopus catch has almost disappeared.

He thinks the algal bloom may have hurt the octopus, but SARDI is not sure.

A scientist says the octopus might be gone due to environmental reasons.

The octopus started disappearing about a year ago.

Leon Van Weenen has been catching octopus for 14 years.

He used to catch 350 kilograms of octopus per trip.

But now, his catch is very small.

He went out in January, February, and March, and saw the decline.

The next month, his catch went down to just eight octopus.

It was a big change, and it was not worth going out to fish.

Leon Van Weenen used to catch 350kg of octopus a month.

He has lost more than $150,000 since March.

Is the algal bloom to blame?

The algal bloom killed fish and hurt oyster operators in SA.

Leon Van Weenen told SARDI about the problem last year.

The algal bloom was not recorded in Spencer Gulf at that time.

But Leon Van Weenen thinks the bloom hurt the octopus.

SARDI's Mike Steer says there could be many reasons for the decline.

He wants to know more about the octopus population.

The algal bloom was not as bad in Spencer Gulf as in other areas.

Mike Steer thinks there might be other ecological problems.

He says it could be due to food, water, or habitat changes.

The southern keeled octopus is smaller than the pale octopus.

What happened to the octopus?

Leon Van Weenen thinks the algal bloom is to blame.

He said the bloom must have hurt the octopus.

Leon Van Weenen is now fishing for a different type of octopus.

He is trying to sell the new octopus to his buyers.

The sales of the new octopus have been good.

But they do not know when they will have the pale octopus again.

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