THE September meeting of the Hamilton Field Naturalist Club (HFNC) will feature Bruce McInnes who will describe his life-time interests, experiences and work in breeding native fish.
Bruce currently works with the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority (CMA) as a facilitator in the Wimmera region.
According to Bruce, he developed a fascination with aquatic life during his primary school years in the early to mid-1970s, there was water everywhere and he collected aquatic life in his lunch box after school.
During his high school years, he started keeping endemic and introduced fish species in aquaria and towards the end of his high school years he worked with Murray-Darling large-bodied fish during the school holidays at the first commercial native fish farm near Violet Town in Victoria.
In 1982, Bruce started work experience in the Ichthyology (Fish) Department at the Victorian Museum, with the curator, Dr. Martin Gomon as his mentor.
Dr Gomon is the museum's first research scientist trained in the science of fish classification and evolution and is regarded as Victoria's authority on the identification and distribution of fishes - at the museum, Bruce gained valuable experience with fish identification.
In 1983, Bruce worked in Queensland on prawn a trawler where he collected fish species and netted in fresh water, for the Victorian museum.
From there Bruce worked on the first native fish hatchery at Mullet Creek, Queensland and from 1990, Bruce worked for Abbington Fish Hatchery in Queensland, breeding tropical to temperate fish species.
In 1992, Bruce returned to Victoria and set up (and still runs) the Wartook Native Fish Culture, breeding Murray River and estuarine perch species.
Since 2005, Bruce has been with the Wimmera CMA as a facilitator - in 2008, he helped found the Native Fish Australia (Wimmera) branch, that is still in existence today.
Bruce will also attend the HFNC excursion to the Wannon River on November 18 to look for fish and other freshwater species in the pools at Nigretta and Wannon Falls Reserves.
For this excursion the HFNC will meet at the Hamilton Visitor Centre and depart at 9am.
Members and visitors are invited to attend Bruce’s presentation at HIRL on Friday September 22 at 7.30pm and the excursion on Saturday November 18.
