More than 30 of Australia’s leading figures in the protection and restoration of the precious native Growling Grass Frog from SA, Victoria, ACT, New South Wales and Queensland came together this week for an online forum convened by Winton Wetlands.
The virtual gathering on Tuesday 27 August was the second in an ongoing series aiming to keep researchers and people in the field in touch with one another and share the benefits in what is being learned – sometimes with a degree of trial and error – about how best to conserve this threatened species and to return it successfully to locations where it has become locally extinct.
Ecologists shared latest lessons being learned through short talks on the care and monitoring of ‘Growlers’ returned to Winton Wetlands and with important insights from other sites elsewhere across other projects.
Virtual attendees included experts from the University of Melbourne, Australian National University, University of Queensland, University of Canberra, La Trobe University and Charles Sturt University.
Management organisations represented were Melbourne Water, Coliban Water, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority, NSW Department of Environment and Heritage, Benalla City Council and Shepparton City Council. Expert consultants Practical Ecology and Wild Research also took part.
Community groups were well represented with Swamps Rivers & Ranges, Nature Glenelg Trust, Wetland Revival Trust, Albury Parklands, Merri Creek Management Committee and Darebin Creek Management Committee all taking part.
One of the successful features of the event was the rapid-fire roundtable updates from everyone in the virtual room, allowing a lot of useful information to be shared very efficiently.
Winton Wetlands will offer recordings of the event to participants and other interested parties in the near future.
These ongoing occasional sessions are seen as an important part of the practitioner knowledge sharing which must continue to give all Growler population sites their best chances of sustainable success over time. In short, there’s a lot of talk still needed on the way to achieving more growling in more places!
You can join, and get updates, by going to our web page and fill out our Taskforce Growlers Expression of Interest form here https://wintonwetlands.org.au/growling-grass-frogs/ (select Practitioner’s Network in question 5 (or in fact any other you like too).
Posted 30 August 2024
