New fishways are helping fish species, including barramundi and mangrove jack, to breed up in North Queensland waterways.

Six fishways built between Tully and Crystal Creek near Paluma over the last year have removed barriers for juvenile fish. Together, they’ve opened up more than 100 kilometres of creek and river systems – and recent surveys at these sites have shown they are fish highways.

Fish highways – 16 native species including barra, tarpon

More than 1000 fish were recorded moving through one of the fishways – at Insulator Creek north of Townsville – in one day. And in more recent surveys, over 4500 fish were caught and released during monitoring work at four rock ramp fishways.

“Sixteen native species, including juvenile barramundi, empire gudgeon, rainbow fish, tarpon and long-finned eels, were recorded,’’ Terrain NRM’s Deb Bass said.

“Of the 80+ species of native fish we have in the Wet Tropics region, up to half need to move between salt and freshwater habitats to complete their lifecycles. Barriers like weirs, pipes, culvert crossings and weed chokes can stop these species from thriving.

“In recent surveys at our fishways, eight of the 16 native species recorded are species that need that movement – from their beginnings in saltwater to safer freshwater nursery grounds as juveniles and then back downstream to the saltwater to breed as adults. So we can see the fishways are providing access for these species, from barramundi and mangrove jack to shrimps.”

A series of underwater stairs for fish

Terrain NRM has been working with OzFish Unlimited, Catchment Solutions and Australasian Fish Passage Services on the ‘Fish Homes and Highways’ project, which is funded by the Australian Government’s Reef Trust. Fishways are a relatively new solution in the region – a series of underwater stairs for fish, with deep pools between each one for resting.

Catchment Solutions fishery ecologist Matt Moore said rocks were placed strategically, sometimes in S-bend and sometimes a straight line, to achieve the right gradient to create a slower flow while also being able to withstand floods.

“To pull in our monitoring traps and see all the fish – a lot goes into the design of these structures, so we love seeing a result like this,’’ he said.

New ‘nursery slot’ for super small juveniles 

A ‘nursery slot’ is a new feature, trialled in one of the fishways, to help super small juveniles move upstream.

“It needs 20mm or less of water going through it to create the right conditions for weaker-swimming juvenile fish,” Matt said. “We recently recorded the smallest snakehead gudgeon ever documented in Australian fishway studies travelling through the slot. It was 16mm long.”

Aerial surveys in the Tully and Murray Upper region have helped to understand the extent of pond apple, a Weed of National Significance, at the top end of these catchments.

The Murray River catchment is the most southerly part of the region with major outbreaks of pond apple so the goal is to keep it from spreading further south to Cardwell, the Ingham district and beyond.

Terrain NRM’s Deb Bass said drones and a helicopter were used to search for pond apple after mapping wetland areas and selecting more than 25 survey sites.

“It is known there is pond apple in the Tully and Murray floodplain – we wanted to find out the extent of the problem further upstream,’’ she said.

Two-year life cycle for pond apple seeds

“Pond apple seeds have a two-year life cycle so if control work can continue for two to three years it is much more achievable to contain an outbreak.

“Isolated pond apple trees have been found further south in the Lower Herbert, but ongoing weed control by the Hinchinbrook Shire Council has prevented it from spreading. It has also been found in the Mackay region and some of the Torres Strait Islands. If pond apple is caught early, by removing mature trees from upper catchments and continuing to monitor for seedlings, there is a good chance of removing the seed bed.”

Recent aerial surveys identified more than 15 pond apple sites in wetland areas in the upper Tully and Murray catchments. The plant, which is listed as a Weed of National Significance, grows into thickets and can take over areas, especially swampy spots, impacting fish species and replacing whole ecosystems.

2000 hectares covered by pond apple in the Wet Tropics

Pond apple currently covers 2000 hectares in the Wet Tropics region. Its seeds and fruit spread via water, especially in floods, and via feral pigs. Terrain NRM removed more than 20,000 mature pond apple trees in the Upper Warrami and Corduroy Creek wetland areas of the Murray River catchment in recent years and followed up last year with seedling removals from the same sites.

Treatment methods include mechanical control, herbicide control and fire, with a combination of those methods often used.

Ms Bass said the survey results, which would be shared with relevant organisations, could be used to source funding and plan future whole-of-catchment weed control work.

The critically endangered mountain-top nursery frog has jumped into the spotlight as a new project starts, aimed at improving its chances of survival.

The mountain-top nursery frog is only found near Mt Lewis, west of Port Douglas.

Terrain NRM secured funding this week through the Australian Government’s Saving Native Species (Priority Species) Grants for a project focused on protecting the rare frog’s breeding sites at the heights of Mt Lewis National Park.

Reducing threats to mountain-top nursery frogs

The project aims to reduce threats to the survival of the mountain top nursery frog and will be delivered by Terrain in partnership with Western Yalanji traditional owners, James Cook University researchers, Gulf Savannah NRM and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.

Project leader Dr Andrew Dennis said feral pigs were a major threat and pig exclusion fencing would be installed around known frog breeding sites. Pig control measures would also begin soon, as well as species monitoring work.

“These frogs are only found in dense, small-leafed, or microphyll rainforest at altitudes above 1100 metres – they’re considered to be one of the most range-restricted frog species in Australia,” Dr Dennis said. “Because of this they’re extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change from warming to changes in rainfall and cloud distribution.

Focus on feral pigs

“Feral pigs are another big threat, and pigs are increasing in numbers at high altitudes and disturbing and in some cases destroying the small palms and woody debris that are critical habitat for the mountain top nursery frog.

“Western Yalanji traditional owners will help monitor exclosure fencing and with surveying the feral pig damage on Mt Lewis, and we’ll work with Queensland Parks and Wildlife rangers on the most effective control measures.

“About 2000 square metres of frog breeding habitat will be fenced off.

“We will also be partnering with James Cook University on research to monitor protected and unprotected habitat, looking at the breeding success of mountain top nursery frogs, the amount of woody debris and the numbers of small palm trees (Linospadix apetiolatus) that they live in and near.

The search is on for pond apple in the Murray Upper region south of Tully, where aerial surveys will begin in coming weeks.

Terrain NRM’s Deb Bass says drones will be used along waterways and wetlands in the Tully-Murray flood plain area to discover the extent of pond apple and other invasive weeds.

Pond apple is a major environmental weed in the Wet Tropics region and the Murray River catchment is the most southerly part of the region with major outbreaks. It grows in thickets and can replace whole ecosystems.

“We want to prevent its spread,’’ Deb said. “The seeds stay viable for two years. But by removing mature trees from the upper catchment, and continuing monitoring for seedlings, we have a good chance of removing the seed bed.

“Isolated pond apple trees have been found further south in the Lower Herbert but ongoing weed control by the Hinchinbrook Shire Council has prevented any spreading.”

Terrain NRM is working with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries on a pilot study, and with landholders, Canegrowers Tully, Sugar Research Australia, Cassowary Coast Regional Council, Biosecurity Queensland, the Department of Resources and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.

Deb said drones surveying would only be over wetlands.

“The last catchment-wide survey for pond apple was in 2008. Pond apple now covers 2000 hectares in the Wet Tropics region and it’s spreading in floods when seed and fruit travel downstream. The seeds are also spread via feral pigs.”

The upcoming survey work follows on from pond apple control work as part of Terrain NRM’s ‘Fish Homes and Highways’ project. More than 20,000 mature pond apple trees in the Upper Warrami and Corduroy Creek wetland areas were removed in 2021 and 2022 and there was follow-up work last year to remove seedlings at the same sites. In the process, larger patches of pond apple were found in wetlands.

Deb said survey results would be used to source funding and plan future whole-of-catchment weed control work. The focus area is from the Bruce Highway west to the foothills of the Upper Murray River catchment.

Mahogany gliders have been captured on camera at three sites between Tully and Townsville as recovery team members start a new phase in their work to save this endangered species.

The elusive little gliders have been spotted in bushland on the Cardwell Range and further south at Bambaroo as part of a five-year monitoring program to learn more about mahogany glider populations and how many remain in the wild.

Sixty cameras, five weeks, a photo every three seconds…

Terrain NRM’s Jacqui Diggins said 60 cameras were attached to trees for a five-week period by teams from Girringun Aboriginal Corporation, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, James Cook University, NQ Dry Tropics NRM and Terrain NRM.

“These cameras take photos every three seconds. We set up 20 cameras in a quadrant at three different locations where mahogany gliders have been recorded during research over the last 15 to 20 years.

“The aim is to do this for five years at the same locations, with the same methods and at the same time of year so we can detect trends in the glider population.”

Mahogany gliders are only known to be between Tully and Ollera Creek, north of Townsville. The last population estimate for this endangered species was based on survey data collected from 1994 to 1996. It was estimated that between 1500 and 2000 mahogany gliders remained. Then their habitat was battered by a severe tropical cyclone in 2011.

Monitoring key populations through time

Mrs Diggins said cameras had been used over the past two years, along with catch and release trapping to take tiny tissue samples, in a bid to better understand the boundaries of mahogany glider habitat, populations and genetic health. The work was part of a Terrain NRM project funded by the Australian Government, and was also James Cook University research led by PhD student Eryn Chang and Professor Conrad Hoskins.

The results have laid the foundations for the current population monitoring program.

Cassowary crossing hotspots on Mission Beach roads are now safer for the endangered birds and for drivers.

Weeds have been replaced with cassowary food plants under the bridge at Wongaling Creek on the El Arish-Mission Beach Road and tall roadside grass is being regularly slashed and brush-cut at ‘Garrett’s Corridor’ on the Tully-Mission Beach Road.

Cassowaries crossing under bridge

Terrain NRM’s Tony O’Malley said the changes made it easier for cassowaries to cross under the bridge and avoid the busy road, and also more appealing for them to take that route, while at Garrett’s Corridor it was easier for cassowaries and drivers to see, and avoid, each other.

“James Cook University’s recent cassowary vehicle strike social research project showed us we can’t just rely on raising awareness in the community to reduce cassowary strikes – we have to change the roadside environment too,’’ Mr O’Malley said.

“So we formed a working group of Cassowary Recovery Team members and local organisations to investigate and agree on actions to improve safety for drivers and cassowaries at two crossing hotspots.”

Drivers interviewed to learn about collisions

In the James Cook University study, drivers were interviewed about collisions with cassowaries and roadside camera footage was examined for a better understanding of both cassowary and driver behaviour.

Researcher India Marshall said most drivers thought the accidents weren’t due to their driving, although some people who witnessed collisions suggested otherwise.

“The videos showed some careless driving but also variable cassowary reactions to vehicles, making it hard for drivers to prepare for interactions,” she said.

“Drivers suggested that driver education would be effective. We can’t rely solely on education to reduce strikes though, so changes to road environments are also needed, such as replacing weeds and hazardous trees at crossing zones with low-growing native plants.”

Working with community group C4 

Terrain NRM recently engaged Mission Beach organisation ‘C4 – Community for Coastal and Cassowary Conservation’ to improve the vegetation at two cassowary crossing hotspots, as part of Terrain’s Building Rainforest Resilience Project. This project is supported by Terrain, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.

The Cassowary Credit Scheme has reached a new phase in its development, with field testing at more than 30 revegetation sites now happening across the Wet Tropics region.

New funders on board

Terrain NRM’s Bronwyn Robertson said new co-funding from the Queensland Department of Environment and Science and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia was welcomed as the biodiversity market scheme progressed to an on-ground testing stage.

Designed by Terrain NRM, the scheme will enable Far North Queensland land managers to generate tradable units of habitat restoration, known as a ‘Cassowary Credits’, which will be sold on environmental markets to investors ranging from philanthropists to governments and corporates.

Ms Robertson said Cassowary Credits focused on restoration of Far North Queensland tropical rainforest habitat. She said up to 50,000 hectares of land had potential to be part of the scheme.

“This is land that’s considered unsuitable for agriculture based on soil type, slope or closeness to watercourses,’’ she said.

Team work to design new ecosystems services market scheme

Terrain NRM has been working with private industry, government, scientists, indigenous groups and wildlife experts to design and develop the new ecosystem services market scheme.

Ms Robertson said the new funding would also be used to build regional capacity for larger scale restoration projects and to incorporate Accounting for Nature methodology into the scheme to widen its scope to include carbon projects with environmental co-benefits.

Thousands of fish barriers – from weirs to causeways and culverts – are affecting native fish populations in the Wet Tropics and impacting commercial and recreational fishing.

A recent study in the Daintree, Mossman and Barron River estuaries identified more than 1600 potential barriers for fish, and earlier studies of the Herbert and Murray River estuaries identified more than 3000.

Terrain NRM’s Lana Hepburn said results have led to work at 18 sites in the Herbert and Murray catchments to modify causeways, retrofit fish passageways and control weeds, but a lot more work needs to be done.

The natural resource management organisation is calling for more funding to improve fish populations across the Far North.

“More than half of Australia’s fish species, including barramundi and jungle perch, spawn in estuaries and need to move upstream to breed and complete their life cycles,” Ms Hepburn said.

“As small fingerlings, it’s impossible to get past road crossings and weirs, dams, drop-offs and fast-flowing water. Even weeds and a lack of light can impact fish migration.”

Ms Hepburn said fish barriers were identified through geospatial mapping and aerial photography, before field trips to do the ‘ground truthing’.

So far, about 200 of the 1600 sites identified in northern waterways have been visited by a team from Terrain NRM, Wet Tropics Waterways, Catchment Solutions and the Dawul Wuru Aboriginal Corporation’s Yirrganydji Land and Sea Rangers.

“About 60 per cent of the sites we’ve visited have significant barriers to fish migration,’’ she said. “The goal is to open up as much upstream habitat as we can.’’

Terrain NRM is prioritising barriers for fixing, based on the best return on investment. At this stage, there is no fish barrier funding for the Daintree, Mossman and Barron catchments beyond the barrier identification project.

“Our priorities are usually the sites closest to an estuary and on larger waterways with more riparian areas,’’ Ms Hepburn said. “The closer a barrier is to the coast, the more upstream habitat it is blocking. The distance between each barrier is important too.

Two days, 270+ passionate, knowledgeable people and a lot of work to do… With growing concerns about the number of threatened species in our region – from cassowaries, golden-shouldered parrots and sawfish to Mabi rainforest and ant plants – it’s no surprise that the recent North Queensland Threatened Species Symposium was a sell-out.

Held in Cairns, the event brought together conservationists, scientists, traditional owners, natural resource management organisations and government representatives to share everything from learnings, challenges, project news and the latest research to cultural knowledge, monitoring methods and recovery team achievements.

The focus was also on funding needs, maximising funding opportunities and, most importantly, collaborative actions that’ll make an impact.

Long-term investment needed

Terrain NRM CEO Stewart Christie called for long-term investment in a nature repair economy: “The Australian Government has committed to a nine-year funding program for the Great Barrier Reef. State governments commit to 10-25 year road programs. We’d welcome similar thinking about investment in the environment and the many natural resources that sustain our regional economy – from tourism to construction – as well as our lifestyle and wellbeing. What we need is combined 20-25 year programs – long-term commitment and investment that is bi-partisan.”

The symposium was full of people who devote their lives to saving threatened species and ecological communities, in paid or volunteer capacities or in both. Because many people and groups focus on a specific threatened species, they often work in silos. So the level of networking at the event was high, and was great to see.

“People were announcing new opportunities or talking about challenges during presentations and later coming to us saying they’d had the chance to talk to Queensland and Australian Government representatives or had made useful recovery team contacts. And government representatives were able to gather a lot of feedback about things like bioregional planning and nature repair markets.”

Thank you supporters and sponsors

The North Queensland Threatened Species Symposium was hosted by the NQ NRM Alliance (Terrain NRM, Cape York NRM and Gulf Savannah NRM) in partnership with the Australian and Queensland governments. It was supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program and the Queensland Government, as well as sponsors: the Wet Tropics Management Authority, The Nature Conservancy, Bush Heritage, the World Wildlife Fund, Centre for Tropical and Environmental Sustainability Science, Queensland Water and Land Conservation, Biosphere Environmental Consultants, the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Up North and Skyrail Foundation.

Some of the good news included:

• New ‘Priority Place’ listing: The ‘Eastern Forests of Far North Queensland’ was recently listed by the Australian Government as one of 20 priority places for threatened species recovery under the Threatened Species Action Plan. At the Symposium, recovery teams and land use planners talked about sustainable solutions for both conservation and development.
• Mabi Forest: A new ‘Reforest’ initiative will revegetate an area near Wongabel State Forest that was logged. Reforest has launched an app, with the support of the tourism industry, so businesses and their customers can invest in local regenerative efforts that’ll  contribute to drawing down carbon.
• Cassowaries – Wet Tropics & Cape York: A Cassowary Recovery Plan will go out for public comment soon. The Wet Tropics cassowary population appears to be stabilising. The recovery team is cautiously optimistic: “We believe the numbers are now stable but we need to ensure they remain stable”. On the Cape, there is new knowledge about cassowary populations. After 40 years with no recorded sightings, cassowaries were detected in 2018 and sightings continue. Actions include the development of a cassowary management plan, traditional fire management, pig and cattle management in cassowary country and indigenous ranger training.
• Indigenous ranger program: This program is continuing to expand, building capacity in First Nation organisations.

Twelve new projects are helping to improve and connect rainforests from Bloomfield to Cardwell and west to Wondecla.

Landholders, traditional owners and threatened species recovery groups are embarking on tree-planting, weed control and habitat protection initiatives through a ‘Building Rainforest Resilience’ project focused on nationally significant rainforest areas.

It’s part of Terrain NRM’s vision to build one strong, healthy and intact forest system in the Wet Tropics region.

Working with landholders in priority areas

Terrain’s Tony O’Malley said 300 landholders – with large properties beside world heritage areas and within the region’s top-six cassowary corridors or with Mabi or littoral rainforest refugia – had been invited to be part of the project.

One of the latest grant recipients is the Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji Peoples Prescribed Body Corporate (GMYPPBC).  The Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji rangers will be removing weeds, including lantana, giant bramble and guava, from cassowary habitat on Aboriginal land within the GMYPPBC Trustee area in Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire east of Cairns.

Rangers Cadmas Sands and Justin Keyes said the work area was around a traditional walking track used for trade.

“It’s part of our story but nobody’s done work there for years. We want to clean up the weeds. We’ll give it our best to get it back to where it was. This funding allows our generation to go back on more country and work and buy materials and protect our country.”

Mr O’Malley said the work was right on the edge of the rainforest and would help the forest recover the area, through natural regeneration, once rangers removed the weeds.

Supporting Traditional Owners

“The Gunggandji-Mandingalbay Yidinji Peoples PBC manages 8,200 hectares of Aboriginal land and it’s one of the biggest coastal forests in the region,” he said. “This is about supporting the Traditional Owners to keep a large habitat patch in good condition.”