NGT Out and about – Photos from the field in June

Lots of fish action in Mildura this month! First up – about 1000 Olive Perchlet (also known as Agassiz’s Glassfish) were released into a surrogate breeding dam on the 4th of June in Mildura, Victoria. This small native fish species is endangered in NSW, and extinct in the wild in Victoria (and probably in SA where they haven’t been seen since the 80s). This dam was funded through the Tri-State Alliance to be a surrogate site for the Olive Perchlet. The fish were supplied by the Victorian Fisheries authority. NGT and North West Aquaculture developed and manage the dam in which the fish were released.

Secondly – We have broken ground on a new Freshwater Catfish surrogate breeding dam to breed catfish for translocation purposes, at North West Aquaculture near Mildura! NGT’s Scott Huntley won a Murray Darling Basin Authority Native Fish Recovery Strategy grant for the project. Freshwater Catfish are a native catfish, endangered in Victoria. Through a partnership with North West Aquaculture, we will release Freshwater Catfish here to build up numbers in this specially designed dam for future wild releases.

And lastly – yes more fish! This month the crew has been out doing some fish surveys across the Karst Rising Springs in the south-east. Karst Rising Springs (and associated alkaline fens of the Naracoorte Coastal Plain Bioregion) are a recently listed endangered ecological community at a national level. These important ecosystems are home to almost a third of the freshwater fish species of South Australia. During the surveys the team found a Spotted Galaxias, a great find. Jonathan Tuck (Jono) also captured a stunning photo illustrating the clarity of some of these Karst Rising Springs during the fish surveys. His photo (bottom) was taken at one of the smaller ponds in the Piccaninnie Ponds Conservation Park.