00:00The calm winter waters of South Australia's Gulf St Vincent usually attract schools of
00:10prized King George Whiting and boatloads of visitors to catch them.
00:16Net fisherman Andrew Pisani hasn't caught a healthy fish in these waters for more than
00:2170 days.
00:23Every boat ramp now is empty.
00:25There's no vessels here at all, no tourism, no nothing here and it's a concern and it's
00:32a big concern.
00:34Toxins linked to the harmful algal bloom, identified as predominantly Karenia mikimotoi, have also
00:40closed local oyster leases.
00:42Edith Berg attracts thousands of school holidaymakers over summer.
00:51Fishers rely on the winter school holidays to tide them through the quieter months.
00:55There's not really a lot of fishing going on but we do have plenty of other things for
01:00you to do around the town.
01:02But with no fishing, diving or surfing on the peninsula, people are staying away.
01:08No luck and it's really sad to see that there's all dead fish everywhere.
01:12The shackeys haven't come, they've come for a day or two days, gone fishing, haven't gone
01:17home again so the business side of it has dropped right off.
01:23In Port Vincent, local businesses are uniting to call for help.
01:28They want a natural disaster declaration to trigger Commonwealth support.
01:32We're all struggling with this, I'm probably around about 12 to 15 per cent down.
01:37What I worry about is the on-flow effect of the next few months.
01:41Everything on the bottom is dead and it will take more than just one year to recover.
01:47It's going to take a lot of years to recover.
01:50People here want answers.
01:52They want to see more research into the algal bloom, fish stocks and the safety of eating
01:56local seafood.
01:59Fish and ship sales at the Port Vincent kiosk are down 50 per cent.
02:03Previously it was, do you have local, we want to buy local, now they don't want local.
02:08They've asked us, they'd rather buy overseas fish so that they, and we're not buying from
02:13our local suppliers.
02:14The kiosk owners have already had to cut staff hours, but as locals watch their livelihoods
02:20wash up dead on the beach, they say a lifeline is needed now.
02:29You can do a lot to buy overseas fish.
02:41Lots of food is easy.
02:43There are a lot to see down below.
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