What’s hiding in the Limestone Coast’s crystal-clear karst springs?

Lauren and the crew, along with SA National Parks staff have recently been surveying fish in the unique spring-fed wetlands of Ewens Ponds, Piccaninnie Ponds and Pick Swamp on the Limestone Coast in the South East of South Australia. This kind of ecosystem – also called Karst Springs – are nationally endangered, so it’s important to monitor their health and inhabitants.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service SA had their annual staff workshop nearby in Eight Mile Creek, many of the Parks staff from all over SA joined NGT to set and retrieve nets across four days for our Spring 2025 survey. On the last day at Pick Swamp, we had two staff from the Landscape Board also join us to retrieve the nets and process the fish caught, before returning them to the water. 

Among many other fish species, we found Spotted Galaxias (Galaxias truttaceus), and extremely large ones at that! See Lachie’s article here about this interesting species. They were roughly 50mm bigger than what we usually see/have caught in this system before. Another exciting catch was threatened species, Little Galaxias (Galaxias toourtkoourt), with the mature males displaying bright breeding colouration (a broad orange-red band on their midside).

Many thanks to conservation ecologist Claire Harding from the National Parks and Wildlife Service SA with whom we have been working closely, and to the Friends of Mount Gambier Area Parks who contributed funding for our time through the National Parks and Wildlife Service South Australia Friends of Parks and Nature Grant Program,