A Booroolong Frog — thriving after the floods. Picture: DAVID HUNTER
A THREATENED rare species of frog found in the Upper Murray has thrived since floods in March 2011.
A joint survey by Parks Victoria, the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment and NSW Office of Environment and Heritage shows the Booroolong frog survived the drought years and the floods have since provided an ideal breeding habitat.
“Recent surveys have shown that not only have the Booroolongs survived but they’ve benefited from the one in 80-year Upper Murray floods,” Department of Sustainability senior biodiversity officer Glen Johnson said.
“Although essential infrastructure including bridges and fencing was lost — and it was an obvious pain in the neck for farmers at the time — there has been a silver lining to that dramatic flooding event.
“Rocky cobble, exposed and now deposited along the stream edges, has restored ideal breeding habitat for the Booroolong frog.
“They’ve bounced back including into sites they had disappeared from during the drought.
“Burrowye-Guys Forest Creek and Koetong Creek are the only known Booroolong frog locations in Victoria and they, along with many others in the Upper Murray, got hammered in last year’s floods.”
The species had shown it was resilient.
“They’ve survived the drought and now the floods. That’s great news given the increasingly changing nature of our climate,” he said.
David Hunter from the Office of Environment and Heritage said the Booroolong frog was now listed nationally as an endangered species.
“Much of the Booroolong’s natural habitat has changed through historical land clearing and ongoing threats including stream flow reductions and other hydrological changes, weeds, introduced predators and disease,” Mr Hunter said
Funding for the Booroolong frog monitoring project came from the Parks Victoria flood recovery initiative and the department’s North East natural resource investment plan.