Water quality

Category

The plight of Southern Pygmy Perch and the local efforts for recovery

By Lucy Stuart August 31, 2023

Once used as a common bait fish across the Murray-Darling Basin, the now threatened Southern Pygmy Perch (SPP) has now disappeared from most historically known locations. In NSW there are only three broad locations remaining located nearby the towns of Dalton, Holbrook and Albury. The upper Lachlan drainage near Dalton is the most far-north population

What have the recent floods meant for the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth?

By Kate McKenna April 5, 2023

Recent floods flowing down the Murray River have well and truly reached the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Mouth of the Murray. All 593 openings across 5 barrages, which for the last 80 years have controlled flows at the Mouth of the Murray, were fully open over the summer, with freshwater, saltwater, fish and other creatures

An aerial photograph of Lake Eildon Spillway on an overcast day.

Does cold water pollution affect native fish differently?

By Kate McKenna March 20, 2023

Native fish in Australia are hardy, having adapted over millennia to live in one of the driest continents on Earth. However, research shows that even the hardiest of native fish species aren’t immune to the effects of human changes to natural environments. River regulation, in particular, alters aquatic ecosystems significantly, changing the natural environment and

A native Australian platypus nestles its bill in shallow water, surrounded by grasses. the sky is reflected on the surface of the water. Photo credit: Australian Platypus Conservancy.

Continued impacts of the Black Summer bushfires on native fish and platypus

By Kate McKenna February 3, 2023

Australian bushfires are renowned for their unimaginable heat and destruction. The 2020 Black Summer bushfires were a reminder that it is not only the lives and urban ecosystems of human beings that are affected. The media cycle produced countless statistics and images of stranded, burnt wildlife, especially those found in our forests like koalas, kangaroos

Floods and fish – how can flooding help fish and aquatic ecosystems?

By Kate McKenna September 28, 2022

Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, like many other catchments and basins globally, naturally fluctuates between periods of drought and periods of flooding, and has followed this pattern for more than 100 million years. Over time, its many native species have learnt and adapted to this pattern, so that the natural fluctuations between ‘boom and bust’ are now

To stock or not: the case for Barramundi

By Kate McKenna August 22, 2022

Barramundi (Lates calcarifer - also known as the Asian sea bass or the Giant sea perch) is a commonly angled, native Australian fish. Within Australia, Barramundi can be found along the northern coasts and inland rivers in Queensland, Western Australia, and Northern Territory. Looking globally, Barramundi have also left their mark as an introduced species

Bringing fish back to the Barwon-Darling River

By Kate McKenna March 25, 2021

The Summer of 2018-19 saw horrendous sights in the Darling River, around 1 million fish dead from the river’s degradation. This sparked a study in 2020 by researchers Dr Martin Mallen-Cooper and Dr Brenton Zampatti from CSIRO and Charles Sturt University (Restoring the ecological integrity of a dryland river: Why low flows in the Barwon–Darling