Townsville making an impact
Citizen science in North Queensland has had a strong start to the year with involvement from community members, schools, and home-schooling groups in the regular Creekwatch Townsville program, run by OzFish.
As the region develops, new infrastructure and changes can disturb valuable ecosystems. Creekwatch endeavours to offer a helping hand by monitoring the local waterways and reporting the findings to Townsville City Council.
Why is this important? By getting locals engaged in data collection, they can produce vast datasets that help scientists analyze environmental patterns over large geographical areas and long periods. And that’s exactly what Creekwatch does, over long periods our volunteers help collect data that can improve the management of our waterways and give us the information to make better decisions.
Uncovering the data
What have they been finding? As the wet season ends, we’ve seen clarity in the waterways improve, delivering amazing results captured through video monitoring. Many juvenile mangrove jacks have been sighted migrating upstream, with some quite large specimens observed.
However, water around the center of town is choked up by weeds and sediment, which restricts flow and leads to low dissolved oxygen values. This means there is less oxygen present in the water, creating an ecosystem that is not favourable for native fish, but one where invasive species are more likely to thrive as they are less sensitive to environmental conditions.
Tilapia is an invasive species causing problems in the northern part of Queensland and is making its way down south. Sadly, our volunteers have seen them, trapped them and had them show up on underwater video monitoring footage. These sightings indicate that there are extensive populations of tilapia in nearly all water systems in the region. If tilapia is caught, disposing of them, in accordance with local regulations, is the best way to ease their spread and lessen their impact. OzFish has developed an informative video on this and if you’re not up to date on best practice we encourage you to take a look and get informed.
Keep an eye out for a fish ID guide that Creekwatch is developing. It will include native and invasive fish species common in the region. This guide will be a great resource to the community, to help identify the fish in the local waterways and determine if any caught fish are invasive and can be removed from the water.
Waterbugs are your friends
Another species that can be seen during water monitoring is macroinvertebrates. They are small water bugs that can be seen without a telescope. The samples have turned up mixed results, with a diverse range in the area. This activity is especially interesting for younger kids, who are super inquisitive and want to find out about the varied species they can find in the waterways. Crawling bugs and all!
The Creekwatch team are always on the lookout for volunteers and new areas to monitor. The program offers a great learning experience for all ages. If you want to get involved or find out more, head to the Creekwatch project page on our website and register your interest via email at creekwatch@ozfish.org.au.
Creekwatch was established by Townsville City Council and is supported by Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters, NQ Dry Tropics and BCF – Boating, Camping, Fishing.
