Page 2612 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 21 September 2022
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This year EPSDD led the first stage of the national coordination of gang-gang cockatoo recovery. EPSDD also successfully secured funding from the Australian government for additional recovery actions for gang-gang cockatoos, southern brush-tailed rock wallabies and greater gliders in the ACT. These projects are being delivered in collaboration with community groups, conservation organisations and research partners. At Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, the ACT government undertakes captive breeding programs for three threatened species, the brush-tailed rock wallaby, the northern corroboree frog and the Canberra grassland earless dragon. These captive breeding programs form part of national recovery efforts for these species, and they are critical for these species’ survival.
Meanwhile, the success of a reintroduction program for the critically endangered northern corroboree frog, along with captive breeding at Tidbinbilla, continues in collaboration with the Australian National University. Since the release of 540 northern corroboree frogs in late 2020, another 309 frogs and 1,000 eggs have been recently released to bolster the population at a new, carefully chosen, trial release site in Namadgi National Park, and early results are very promising. Follow-up surveys have shown that the frogs are persisting and breeding at the release site.
Another of our critically endangered species, very close to extinction in the wild, is the Canberra grassland earless dragon that is restricted to fragments of grassland habitat in Canberra and neighbouring south-west Queanbeyan. A breeding colony and insurance population of Canberra grassland earless dragons was established at Tidbinbilla last year. The first breeding season was successful, with 30 baby dragons hatching. The total number in the colony at Tidbinbilla has increased to 56 dragons. Reintroduction of some of these individuals is planned for this spring. EPSDD, in collaboration with the New South Wales government and the University of Canberra, have successfully established a captive breeding colony of the endangered smoky mouse at the University of Canberra. Individuals bred at the colony will be used to trial soft release methods for the species at Tidbinbilla.
Looking after the habitat of our threatened species is also critically important. The ACT is significant in having a large intact grassland and grassy woodlands, as well as high country bogs and fens that contain our only Ramsar site. Natural temperate grassland is considered to be one of the most threatened Australian ecological communities, and is listed under both the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the ACT’s Nature Conservation Act as critically endangered. The ACT contains significant remnants of the remaining extent of the natural temperate grassland in the region, and therefore is a priority for protection and management.
The ACT’s remaining box–gum woodlands are also nationally significant, as they are among the biggest, most connected and most botanically diverse examples of their type. The critically endangered yellow box–Blakely’s red gum grassy woodland is particularly important. In 2021 the formal protection of 160 hectares in the Nadjung Mada Nature Reserve protected important habitat for the vulnerable striped legless lizard, superb parrot, and Perunga grasshopper, and includes 85 hectares of critically endangered box–gum woodland.
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