Why is there a boundary to licencing, stopping Yabby farming in the higher rainfall areas?
Yabbies are not a native WA species; they were introduced from western Victoria in 1932 to the Narembeen area and, then, spread widely. The boundary to Yabby farming (formerly Albany Highway and now nearer the state forests) is intended to separate it from habitats of the native marron, koonacs and gilgies, which occur mainly in natural waters in the wetter forested part of the southwest. Yabby harvesting is best suited to the muddy tank dams of the inland agricultural region, where most of the large number of existing dams are still not harvested. For more information read Fisheries Research Report No. 92, 1992 ( “Spread of the introduced Yabby Cherax albidus Clark, 1936 in Western Australia” by N. M. Morrissy and G. Cassells).
