. https://doi.org/10.24199/j.mmv.1979.40.04 31 July 1979 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF SOUTH GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA By K. C. Norris, A. M. Gilmore and P. W. Menkhorst Fisheries and Wildlife Division, Ministry for Conservation, Arthur Ryiah Institute for Environmental Research, 123 Brown Street, Heidelberg, Victoria 3084 Abstract The South Gippsland area of eastern Victoria is the most southerly part of the Australian mainland and is contained within the Bassian zoogeographic subregion. The survey area contains most Bassian environments, including ranges, river flats, swamps, coastal plains, mountainous promontories and continental islands. The area was settled in the mid 180()s and much of the native vegetation was cleared for farming. The status (both present and historical) of 375 vertebrate taxa, 50 mammals, 285 birds, 25 reptiles and 15 amphibians is discussed in terms of distribution, habitat and abundance. As a result of European settlement, 4 mammal species are now extinct and several bird species are extinct or rare. Wildlife populations in the area now appear relatively stable and are catered for by six National Parks and Wildlife Reserves. Introduction TOPOGRAPHY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY {see Hills 1967; and Central Planning Authority 1968) Surveys of wildlife are being conducted by The north and central portions of the area the Fisheries and Wildlife Division of the are dominated by the South Gippsland High- Ministry for Conservation as part of the Land lands (Strzelecki Range) which is an eroded, Conservation Council's review of the use of rounded range of uplifted Mesozoic sand- Crown Land in Victoria. stones and mudstones rising to 730 m. Jn this paper we present data on the distri- Around the coast are a succession of plains. bution and habitat requirements of vertebrate The Cape Paterson Plains and Tarwin Low- species in the South Gippsland area of Vic- lands are both down-warped fault blocks of toria. Field work (February to June 1977) Lower Cretaceous origin covered with sand, was concentrated on public land although all clay and gravel deposits which give the plains incidental observations on private land were an irregular but low relief. The Alberton Low- recorded and are included here. To this we lands inland from Port Albert is an emerged have added results of earlier surveys (e.g. coastal plain of low elevation and low relief Seebeck et al. 1968), observations by both covered with Quaternary sediments. This amateur and professional naturalists in fre- grades eastward into the East Gippsland plains quently visited areas (e.g. Wilsons Promon- which have a higher relief of fluviatile sands tory) and specimen records from the National and gravels overlaying Cainozoic sediments, Museum of Victoria (NMV) and Fisheries The Gippsland Plains extend around the north and Wildlife Division of Victoria (FWD) of the South Gippsland Highlands and contain the La Trobe River valley. Survey Area There are three coastal prominences: Cape The northern boundary of the survey area Paterson is an extension of the Cape Paterson can be approximated by straight lines drawn Plains; Cape Liptrap is an area of resistant from Wonthaggi to Traralgon and Traralgon to Palaeozoic rocks and forming cliffs up to 75 m Seaspray. The coastline forms the southern at the coast but slopes down as an undulating boundary of the mainland survey area. The plateau further inland; and Wilsons Promon- area also includes islands of the Snake Island- tory, which was a granitic island but is now St Margaret Island group, Corner Inlet islands, linked to the mainland by an accumulation of Seal Islands, and islands off Wilsons Promon- sand known as the Yanakie tie bar and forms tory to the Victorian State boundary north of a rugged mountainous promontory rising to Kanowna Island (Fig. 1). This survey area 760 m. The continental islands near Wilsons approximates the Land Conservation Council's Promontory are also granitic and are of similar South Gippsland 2 Study Area. origin. The low-level islands in the Snake Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria, 105 No. 40, July 1979. 106 K. C. NORRIS, A. M. GILMORE and P. W. MENKHORST 146° H6°30' 147° I \ ' ? * Yo 1 1 o u r n ^Traralgon / j \ / Morwel! / National Parks and / Wildlife Reserves C I / \ rJ ^ 10 5 D 20 ( J Seaspray^ ,' kilometres ! / *A* v&i r~f" 'Leongatha A^ -39°3Q' v\v / v *V ft\* Yar *v Wonth °gg> Port .Albert •Fc jter St. Margaret Island A/ENUS^ f^~ BAY Cape Paterjon VjS*^^^ * a^jr' ^i^J^Sundav Island CORNER INLET ^gSfe #^ J£?> Snake Island fe-^ ; B4SS str^/i ''{ "'*1 • A^'""-''"/-*\"v*' Cape Liptrap 'o SEAL ISLANDS j WILSONS ..^v^ H -.-, ,J i>v - ^ -39° M«iSealers ,ove tTidal GLENNIE ' Waterloo GROUP 'Bay ANSER w GROUP • ft TASMANIA O Rodondo Island J- I Figure 1 —Survey area, South Gippsland. Island - St Margaret Island group are due The link last broke between 10,000 and 15,000 mainly to a recent submergence of a flat coastal years ago (Jennings 1971). plain although some islands have been formed recently by successional sand build-up on river CLIMATE (see Central Planning Authority 1968) bars (Turner e* al. 1962). Temperatures follow a typical summer The coast in this area is dynamic both in maximum and winter minimum pattern. Tem- the short-term through erosion-deposition peratures reach, but seldom exceed, 38 °C cycles and in the long-term through glacial during summer and monthly minima are as eustatic changes in sea-level. Wilsons Promon- low as 2°C in winter with cold 'snap 1 condi- tory is the northern-most eminence of the tions, usually of short duration, reaching Bassian Rise—the submarine ridge that peri- below zero. Both these extremes are ameli- odically links Tasmania and the mainland. orated near the coast. VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF SOUTH GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA 107 Average annual rainfall is as low as 530 mm Highlands started in 1946 with softwood plan- in the east at Seaspray and more than 1270 tations, mainly of Monterey Pine (Pinus mm at Balook in the South Gippsland High- radiata), and hardwood plantations, mainly lands. Rainfall is highest in the two major of Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) mountain areas, the South Gippsland High- (Noble undated). lands and Wilsons Promontory. Winter is the wettest season and summer the driest Maxi- HABITATS mum rainfall in the three summer months is The physical and biotic environment is 250 mm in the South Gippsland Highlands divided into 10 recognizable but arbitrary and in winter is more than 380 mm in the habitat types. Tables 1-3 list the 10 habitats South Gippsland Highlands and Wilsons and the vertebrate species they support. The Promontory. terminology for terrestrial vegetation com- munities is similar to that used in the Land DRAINAGE Conservation Council Reports on adjacent study areas (LCC 1972; 1973). Drainage is typically exorheic (Williams 1967) into the Southern Ocean: via the La /. Ocean. Here are included the open pelagic Trobe River to the Gippsland Lakes which water of Bass Strait, coastal beaches and are northeast of the study area; directly to the islands around Wilsons Promontory. Our sea via several river systems (e.g. Tarwin, survey of this area remained within Victorian Agnes, Albert and Tarra rivers) to the south; State boundaries, that is north of Kanowna and by Merrimans Creek to the sea in the east. Island. Wilsons Promontory is drained by numerous 2. Estuaries and tidal flats. The survey area creeks draining into the sea either directly or features a prominent littoral zone of mud and via estuarine swamps. There are no large sand flats best developed in the Corner Inlet- natural lakes, and the Hazelwood Power Port Albert area but also including Andersons Station cooling pond is the only large fresh- Inlet and Shallow Inlet west of Wilsons water impoundment. Promontory. HISTORY AND LAND USE 3. Freshwater. This category includes streams, The first documented European contact swamps, lakes and farm dams. Streams have with South Gippsland was by Bass and Flinders a typical ontogeny of fast-flowing lotic waters in 1798 when the area was occupied by the in the ranges of the South Gippsland High- Brataualong clan of the Gippsland based lands and Wilsons Promontory to slow moving Kurnai Aboriginal tribe. Aboriginal use of the meandering lentic waters on the flats. Lentic area was mainly restricted to the coast and stages of streams are present and well de- major rivers (Daley 1960). Sealing and whaling veloped around the South Gippsland High- flourished for 40 years from Sealers Cove on lands, but are short or absent on the more Wilsons Promontory until the 1840s (Lennon precipitous Wilsons Promontory. 1974). Farming radiated from Port Albert Freshwater swamps are best developed in and along the La Trobe River around Traral- the La Trobe Valley, in the heath communities Wilsons Promontory, in the swales gon in the 1840s and 1850s and selection and on of old clearing of the South Gippsland Highlands dune development in the Mullungdung Forest and associated with lentic streams near the began in the 1870s (Daley 1960). The plains sea. Farming has resulted in a proliferation of and river flats have been farmed successfully small freshwater farm dams that offer a valu- since, but the South Gippsland Highlands able wildlife environment. farmland deteriorated because of the Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), Austral Bracken 4. Tall open-forest. This is the tallest vegeta- (Pteridium esculentum ) and Blackberry tion community and is restricted to the wet of the mountain areas and lowland gullies of the ( Rubus fruticosus) . Reforestation ) 108 K. C. NORMS, A. M. GILMORF. and P. W. MENKHORST South Gippsland Highlands and Wilsons Pro- areas near the coast, on Wilsons Promontory montory. The dominant eucalypts include and on the Tertiary sediments of the Mullung- Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans).