A tiny frog with a big problem has sparked a mountain-top rescue mission in Far North Queensland.

Conservationists are working in dense rainforest near the summit of Mt Lewis, north of Cairns, to save the critically endangered mountain-top nursery-frog which is facing two challenges – feral pigs and a changing climate.

The frog is roughly the size of a thumbnail and it lays eggs under leaf litter. It is only found in high-altitude cloud forests in Mt Lewis National Park near Julatten.

Feral pigs a major threat

Terrain NRM’s Dr Andrew Dennis says feral pig numbers appear to be increasing above 1,100 metres, based on the amount of disturbance being seen.

“Over time they’ve slowly migrated upwards from the low altitude areas of the mountain,’’ he said.

“In mountain-top nursery frog breeding sites up near the top of Mt Lewis, pigs are now digging up the ground and leaving bare soil where there was leaf litter and tree seedlings, and we’ve observed them digging in the roots of the Linospadix apetiolatus palms.

“These tiny frogs breed in leaf litter. The males call from the palms, to project their voices to females. Eggs are laid in the leaf litter on the palm leaves or the ground. Where it’s deep, it also holds a lot of food for them. But with pig disturbances, they are losing both breeding and feeding zones.”

Installing pig-exclosure fencing

One of the answers is pig exclosure fencing. Terrain NRM has been working with Western Yalanji Traditional Owners and Gulf Savannah NRM to erect fences around 10 breeding sites in dense cloud forest near the top of the mountain. Now they’re also working with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and James Cook University researchers, using frog-call monitors and regular habitat assessments to monitor these sites and rare frogs.

“Breeding season is generally from October-November to March,’’ Dr Dennis said.

“We have 10 fenced sites that exclude pigs and 10 control plots that aren’t fenced and they’re all about 60 metres apart so that calls from frogs at one plot shouldn’t be heard at another.

Audio recorders for population monitoring

“We have audio recorders at each site to monitor calling activity and we’re also regularly monitoring the habitat, measuring things like seedling and leaf litter density and any recovery of the Linospadix apetiolatus palms.

“Pigs are churning up significant areas of this fragile habitat. We are measuring this as part of the project. On a wider scale, they’re also a weed and water quality threat to a highly biodiverse area of the Wet Tropics at the headwaters of the Mitchell and Mossman River systems.”

Climate change a threat to frogs high up on Mt Lewis

At least five frog species have disappeared from the top of Mt Lewis in the past few decades, with three of them likely extinct worldwide. Dr Dennis said a fungal disease had been the main cause of their demise, but climate changes pose another threat to species at the high altitudes of ranges like Mt Lewis.

“I’ve been visiting this region for well over 50 years. Walking in the cloud forest and around the creeks, it used to be noisy with frog calls day and night. Now it’s noticeably a lot quieter.”

Frog’s trill tells a sad story

The mountain-top nursery frog’s trill is also diminishing.

“Calls were detected by researchers in 2003 at 1,100 metres. But 20 years later, in 2023, there were no calls at 1,100 metres. They were detected at 1,200 metres and above.

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.”

Do you want to know more about our new project to reduce threats to the critically-endangeed mountain-top nursery frog? Terrain NRM project leader Dr Andrew Dennis spoke with ABC Far North recently about a project that’ll lead to pig-exclusion fencing around known frog-breeding sites, pig control measures and species monitoring work.

Two thousand square metres of high-altitude rainforest will be fenced off to protect the critically endangered mountain-top nursery frog from feral pigs at Mt Lewis, west of Port Douglas. This frog is one of the most range-restricted on the continent. Terrain NRM is partnering with traditional owners, researchers and other groups on this project and Terrain’s Dr Andrew Dennis is with us to explain how pigs are threatening this frog’s existence at altitudes you wouldn’t expect.

Can you describe what these mountain-top nursery frogs look like…
Well, first of all, they’re tiny. They are about 17mm long – so less than two centimetres in length. They are mottle-coloured, so they blend into the leaf litter really well. The only way you detect them is by hearing the calls of the males. They’ve got a really distinct rattling sort of call that they emit in the wet evenings on those high mountain tops.

They are critically endangered, which means we’re concerned they could become extinct. What makes them so susceptible to extinction?
Firstly, they have a tiny distribution. When they were first found, they were only on a few ridge tops, about 1100m high in the cloud forests – very damp, moist, dripping forests. So that small distribution means anything that happens in that little area could impact the species. Secondly, climate change and global warming are probably the biggest threat. Mountain-top nursery frog breeding sites used to be common at 1100m, but they’re becoming less common there, and they’re more common at 1300m now. As it warms up that little bit, it seems that they might be moving up, but there’s not much we can do immediately on the ground for that. The other thing that’s happening is feral pigs are moving in bigger numbers. Back in the 1990s, a researcher suggested that the pigs might be damaging some of this frog’s habitat and eating some of the adult frogs when they turned logs. In the last five years or so, pig numbers have really exploded and there’s a lot more damage going on in those forests.

We know that pigs are rampant through the lowland rainforest. Why do we think they’re becoming increasingly problematic through the upland or high-altitude rainforest as well?
The evidence is there. Normally when you walk in these high altitude, really wet forests, you’re walking on a spongy mulch of leaf litter and you don’t actually see much soil. But now the pig numbers have got to the point where pigs are turning it all upside-down, and there’s a lot of muddy patches and wallows and broken-up logs where the pigs have pulled them apart looking for beetles and beetle larvae. With a few good wet years up here in the Wet Tropics the pig numbers are increasing everywhere. In the lowlands they’re increasing and they’re also increasing up the mountains. They’re learning to tolerate those colder high-altitude conditions.

In some areas feral pigs are much easier to target and tackle than others. This is pretty inaccessible terrain on Mt Lewis. How will it be done?
It’s dense rainforest and really tricky terrain. We know where the frogs are breeding and where their main breeding sites are because of some work by James Cook University students and lecturer Conrad Hoskins. So we can map the area. But we can’t fence off the whole area that these frogs might breed in. What we are doing is setting up 20 plots. Each one is ten metres by ten metres. For a tiny, less than two-centimetre frog you can actually fit quite a lot of individuals into that space. We are keeping the pigs out of those. And what we’ll have to do is very carefully bring in fencing materials and star pickets and build these fences under the rainforest canopy. The fence has got to keep pigs out but it also needs to allow the native animals to move in and out.

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.

18 October 2021

A new $250,000 grants round is opening for threatened species recovery team members and landholders with priority areas of rainforest in the Wet Tropics region.

Terrain NRM is contacting landholders who have properties with large areas of cassowary habitat or coastal rainforest, or even small patches of critically-endangered Mabi forest.

Grants for tree-planting, weed removal, nature refuges

The grants are for tree-planting, weed removal and nature refuge projects. They are part of Terrain NRM’s Building Rainforest Resilience Project.

Project coordinator Tony O’Malley said landholders and recovery group members had achieved strong results in the first two rounds of grants – with buffer zones and corridors planted for world-heritage rainforest, weeds removed ranging from guinea grass to raspberry, and the creation of nature refuges in Kuranda and Mission Beach.

“Last year, the landholders and recovery groups involved in this grants program achieved weed management work on more than 50 hectares of priority habitat, revegetation projects on over 17 hectares and 150 hectares of voluntary habitat protection agreements,’’ Mr O’Malley said.

Landholders enthusiastic about improving habitat

“The enthusiasm of the people we’ve been working with has been inspiring. Landholders are telling us the funding enabled them to improve their habitat so it’s looking the best it has in years, and they’re proud of the importance of their place to threatened species.”

Queensland Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon has committed $3 million in funding for local-scale water quality monitoring in the Tully and Johnstone catchments.

This funding is to continue the water quality monitoring undertaken over the last four years as part of the Wet Tropics Major Integrated Project. The project has achieved unprecedented buy-in from the local community on water quality issues through bringing together Tully and Innisfail Canegrowers and the Australian Banana Growers, farmers, scientists, industry experts and Traditional Owners.

The grassroots, farmer-led monitoring program is answering growers’ questions about water quality by directly sharing locally relevant, nutrient, sediment and pesticide data from local catchments.

“Growers value and appreciate high quality local data that’s provided within useful timeframes. The local-scale monitoring of streams, paddock run-off and ground water enables us to build understanding about pollutant loss pathways and helps growers make informed paddock management decisions,” said MIP Water Quality Project Leader, Alicia Buckle.

Grower Services Manager from Canegrowers Innisfail, Deb Telford, said: “The Local Scale Monitoring program had such an impact in our district. To stop the momentum of this project would have been disappointing. This announcement today is exciting and is a positive step forward for the next three years. Grower engagement for this project has been encouraging and successful, we’ve had growers say we should have had this 10 years ago.”

Landholders are helping the Far North’s iconic rainforests and cassowaries by joining a strategic action to connect forested areas from the Daintree to Hinchinbrook.

Green corridors have been prioritised across the region and landholders are working with natural resource management organisation Terrain NRM and with community groups to buffer world heritage rainforest and to “fill in the gaps”.

Grants for revegetation, weed management and habitat protection are part of Terrain’s Building Rainforest Resilience Project. Two hundred and fifty property owners in important cassowary, Mabi forest and littoral rainforest areas, and members of threatened species recovery teams, were invited to apply in the first round.
A new grants round is coming up.

In the Daintree and greater Douglas Shire

Bloomfield’s Mt Louis Station manager Ben Morley is one of two Daintree graziers targeting weeds on the edge of the rainforest, while Douglas Shire Council has planted over 1000 trees in the Wangetti area.

Ben and Courtenay Morley have been creating buffer zones for world heritage rainforest and easy access for cassowaries, by removing woody weeds from non-grazing sections of the station along Gap Creek and at the base of Mt Louis and Mt Annie.

“The results have been fantastic. We usually only focus on the paddocks but after getting support, we’ve cleaned up 10 to 12km around the base of the hills and about 12km on both sides of the creek,’’ he said. “Among other environmental benefits, the cassowaries now have easy access to water and feed. We’ve learned more about them too, and we document sightings on the station.”

The Douglas Shire Council has planted 1000 trees and managed weed outbreaks in open areas around Wangetti to connect littoral rainforest patches and extend habitat for cassowaries. Both littoral rainforest and cassowaries are listed nationally as endangered.

In Kuranda

Nevenka Salinovic says tree-planting and weed management work on her family’s 130-hectare property has opened her eyes to the possibilities – and to cassowaries crossing the land.

“Our property backs onto world heritage areas on all sides, and includes pockets of remnant rainforest,’’ Ms Salinovic said. “Getting help with weed management and what trees to plant on the edges of the rainforest and sloping creek banks has been invaluable.”

The family has also been working with Kuranda Envirocare on the project, which has involved slashing and spot-spraying large areas of weeds including guinea grass, prickly raspberry and lantana, and selecting cassowary food trees for future plantings.

“It has been rewarding. We’ve found native trees in under and amongst the weeds, so we won’t have to plant completely from scratch. We knew a bit about cassowaries beforehand but not what they liked to eat and how to plant for their feeding needs throughout the year. Now we are seeing where they come and go – they seem to use our place as a path through to other rainforest.”

The Salinovic project, along with two other weed removal and tree-planting grant projects supported by Terrain NRM and Kuranda Conservation, is helping to restore the Black Mountain cassowary corridor. This corridor is one of the Cassowary Recovery Team’s top priorities.

On the Atherton Tableland

Landholders Louise and John Gavin live on a rural residential property adjoining world-heritage rainforest and endangered Mabi forest.

Ms Gavin said creating a green buffer zone for surrounding national park was their way of giving back to the environment and the farming community.

“We’ve only lived in the region for three years and we had no idea before this that there was a type of rainforest – Mabi forest – that was critically endangered,’’ she said. “It’s really good to be able to have a small project here that fits into the bigger picture of connecting forested areas.”

Three hundred Mabi trees have been planted on the Gavin’s property, with the help of local conservation group TREAT, to improve a revegetation site begun 10 years ago on the land. Weed control has also been a big part of the new project.

“Small grants like this give individual landholders a chance to help build the resilience in pockets of Mabi forest,’’ she said. “It’s a way for landholders like us to do something to balance the eco-system and help others to keep farming their land.”

In the Malaan area, Michelle Bradley has used her grant to kickstart a Himalayan Magnolia and bamboo removal project.

“They’re a really nice tree (magnolias) but in this environment they were taking over everything,’’ she said.  “We’ve gone from one or two appearing out the front to a tight copse of magnolias that nothing can get through. It’s a big job now to remove them all.”

The Bradleys live in the Malaan cassowary corridor, which is the upland part of Australia’s longest and widest east-west rainforest corridor.  They are planting cassowary-friendly trees to replace the magnolias.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes one to save our threatened species – that was one clear message from the recent North Queensland Threatened Species Symposium where research was shared on successes and failures in conservation efforts over the years.

The Threatened Species Recovery Hub’s Stephen Garnett told a crowd of 150 people that many extinctions had been prevented, and species taken off the ‘threatened’ list thanks to sustained conservation action.

Within an incredibly biodiverse North Queensland, there are currently 180 threatened species and four threatened ecological communities. They range from cassowaries, gliders, the northern bettong and golden-shouldered parrot to sawfish, marine turtles and Mabi and littoral forests.

Prof. Garnett has been working on threatened species recovery for more than 30 years. He said successes and failures revealed seven facets of successful recovery efforts:

1. Strategic recovery plans with well-considered actions.
2. Recovery teams that covered a wide range of skills and included government and non-government representatives.
3. Finding a ‘champion’ or champions who are there for the long haul and making sure there is succession planning.
4. Legislation and policy – taking it into account and taking advantage of reviews
5. Resources – looking “in all sorts of places” for both government and non-government options.
6. Research and monitoring so actions are strategic and well-supported.
   Telling the story to build awareness and sustain interest.

Prof. Garnett was one of 45 speakers and workshop leaders at the two-day event which brought together passionate advocates for threatened species from recovery groups and conservation groups to traditional owners, scientists, government representatives including Threatened Species Commissioner Sally Box, and natural resource management practitioners.

The first event of its kind in this region, the symposium was organised by the NQ NRM Alliance – Terrain, Northern Gulf and Cape York natural resource management organisations – in partnership with the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

Terrain NRM’s Jacqui Diggins said she saw that recovery teams were tackling similar issues independently during a networking event held several years ago.

“That was when the concept of a symposium came, but it didn’t become a reality until several years later when the National Threatened Species Recovery Hub accepted an invitation to visit North Queensland and partner with NQ NRM Alliance.”

She said the recent symposium was “like four pieces of the puzzle coming together” – recovery teams, traditional owners, scientists and government.

“Recovery planning and actions need to be informed by science, but recovery teams’ ability to successfully implement the plan is heavily influenced by government policy and funding. Bringing together scientists, government representatives, traditional owners, recovery team members and other groups working on threatened species recovery – the listening, talking and sharing is a big step in the right direction.”

There were two obvious outcomes from the symposium:

• Traditional owners need to be more involved in threatened species recovery efforts from the concept stage through to planning and rolling out projects.
• A new working group has been formed to protect the magnificent broodfrog, listed as ‘vulnerable’ and only found in parts of the Atherton Tablelands and Paluma.

The Wet Tropics’ endangered northern bettong will be better protected through a new project, announced this week.

With an estimated 1000 northern bettongs remaining, Far Northerners are banding together to help the elusive marsupial which is only found in the Mareeba area and is known for its love of native truffles.

The $170,000 project, funded by the Australian Government, aims to improve habitat for northern bettongs outside national park land.

Northern Bettong Project coordinator Chelsy Maloney from Terrain NRM said activities would include cool burns by traditional owners in northern bettong habitat and work with landholders on land management practices in potential bettong areas.

Terrain NRM will also be working with the Northern Bettong Recovery Team including James Cook University researchers, Queensland Parks and Wildlife officers, the World Wildlife Fund, Bush Heritage and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.

Recovery Team Chair Sandra Abell said the project “filled a gap” in the recovery of this species.

“The focus has largely been on protected areas like in national parks,’’ Dr Abell said. “Getting landowners involved will be a huge step towards potentially increasing bettong habitat.”

She said the northern bettong population had dramatically declined over the past 20 to 30 years.
The only known populations now were in the Lamb Range and Mt Spurgeon areas.

“Their habitat is very restricted – in some places it is only 6km wide,’’ she said. “Bettongs need cockatoo grass, especially in the dry season, and activities like cool burns help to stop woodlands from thickening and maintain grassy understoreys.”

Iconic fish species including Jungle Perch, Barramundi, Mangrove Jack and Tarpon will have a better chance of survival and growing their populations in the Murray and Lower Herbert Basins thanks to a new $5 million project announced by Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley.

The project, to be delivered by Terrain NRM, will focus on improving the condition of upstream wetland and nursery areas and on removing barriers that stop juvenile fish moving from spawning areas in the estuaries to nursery areas upstream.

Terrain NRM CEO Stewart Christie said the coastal areas south of Tully to Hinchinbrook include nationally significant wetlands and pockets of endangered coastal ecosystems that are home to an array of bird species as well as fish.

“While both the Murray and Lower Herbert catchments are relatively intact, they are at risk from weeds, feral pigs and other threats, and these need to be managed effectively to maintain the health and condition of these valuable ecosystems.

“We will be working with a large number of partners in the delivery of this project including farmers, landholders, traditional owners, Local Government and local community organisations. The first few months will involve detailed planning and consultation with scientists as well as Traditional Owners and landholders with knowledge of the local landscape.

“Some of the activities that we’ll be undertaking include managing weeds and feral pigs, addressing fish barriers, improving management of drains and farm creeks and getting the community involved in activities such as ‘Adopt a Creek’ or ‘Adopt a Wetland’.”

The Wet Tropics has the highest diversity of fish in Australia with over 80 recorded species. While the habits of many species are not well known it’s estimated that up to 50 per cent of these species need to move between freshwater and estuarine environments for spawning and larval development.