Oolong Creek, NSW 2024
Removed
woody weeds
Relocation
of 200 Southern pygmy perch
Hosted
community forum
Weed control
Control woody weeds (elms, willows, poplars, blackberries, hawthorn, and sweetbriar) along Oolong Creek. Mapping stretches of Oolong Creek to determine suitability for future habitat improvements and identifying high value habitat features, barriers, and water quality. Develop methods for improving in-stream habitat by translocating or propagating aquatic plants using habitat rafts. Also, working with DPI fisheries to translocate southern pygmy perch from existing populations to nearby areas (upstream from a waterfall barrier) where they don’t occur but where there is suitable habitat.
Protecting threatened species
Southern pygmy perch is a threatened species in NSW, where it occurs in only a handful of places. Once common throughout the lower Murray River in billabongs and other habitats with abundant aquatic vegetation, the southern pygmy perch is now mostly found in a small number of locations where their habitat requirements are still met and where redfin and common carp—two introduced, pest species from Europe—are absent. Oolong Creek is once such place, a small headwater stream with some areas of aquatic vegetation which provides cover, food, and nesting habitat for the fish.
