February 2015 Issue
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THE FROG AND TADPOLE STUDY GROUP NSW Inc. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FATSNSW/ Email: [email protected] NEWSLETTER No. 135 February 2015 PO Box 296 Rockdale NSW 2216 Frogwatch Helpline 0419 249 728 Website: www.fats.org.au ABN: 34 282 154 794 Photo by Peter Spradbrow Litoria peroni Windsor Downs Nature Reserve Arrive 6.30 pm for a 7pm start. Friday 6th February FATS meet at the Education Centre, Bicentennial Pk, Sydney Olympic Park Easy walk from Concord West railway station and straight down Victoria Ave. By car: Enter from Australia Ave at the Bicentennial Park main entrance, turn off to the right and drive through the park. It is a one way road. Or enter from Bennelong Road / Parkway. ******** The April meeting is likely to be on 10/4/2015. ******* It is a short stretch of two way road. Please check Frogcall 136 or our website www.fats.org.au to confirm. Park in p10f car park, the last car park before the exit gate. Meeting Format Friday 6th February 2015 6.30 pm There are lost frogs ( Litoria chloris, L. caerulea, CONTENTS PAGE L. infrafrenata, L. peroni and L. gracilenta ) needing forever homes available to FATS financial Last meeting’s main speaker members. Please bring your FATS membership card Gerry Swan 2 and cash $40 - $50 donation. Your current NSW 2015 Frog-O-Graphic competition NPWS amphibian licence must be sighted on the Amphibian licences due 1 April night. Rescued frogs can never be released. Sorry we Green and Golden Bell Frogs have no EFTPOS at meetings. Please contact Monica Garry Daly 3 before the meeting to confirm your interest in Frog skin 4 adopting a rescued frog. Sydney Royal Easter Show 5 7.00pm Welcome and announcements. Fire ants in Sydney Tadpole-bearing frog, Jodi Rowley 6 7.30 pm Main speaker Arthur White “Life as a Wallum Sedge Frog”, Jilli Streit Smiths Lake field trip report and HerpDigest 8 Monica Wangmann Northern Corroboree Frog visit at Dwarf crocodiles 9 Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. “Australian Frogs in Captivity” by Scott Eipper - book review 10 9.15 pm Show us your frog images, tell us about your FATS committee contacts and maps 11 frogging trips or experiences. Guessing competition, Field trip report Peter Spradbrow 12 continue with frog adoptions, supper and a chance to relax and chat with frog experts. Field trips P1 Frogcall 135 February 2015 LAST FATS MEETING 5 DEC. 2014 Greetings fellow froggers, It’s great to see the fantastic photos rthur White chaired the meeting being posted on Facebook by everyone as the frogging season picks Awelcoming newcomers and regular up. The FATS page has about 1,170 members. We all need to be aware attendees. FATS auditory surveys at of the proper frogging hygiene protocols for when we do go out. This Sydney Olympic Park were completed includes ensuring our gumboots, field gear and even vehicles are all clean last November and December. Thanks when moving between sites. For more information please check out this to everyone who came out to participate. link: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resou…/nature/hyprfrog.pdf Monica Wangmann was recognised with We also all need to be aware that certain frogs, particularly threatened life membership of FATS for her work species, in addition to being at risk to chytrid fungus are also prone to site producing 105 Frogcall newsletters for disturbance. Other sites are also study sites used by various researchers. about the last 17 years. Please don’t advertise sites in your photos. Some sites are kept discrete Punia Jeffery spoke in vivid detail about for a reason. Thanks guys and happy frogging to you all. George Madani th the 100 anniversary of the Berlin Aquarium, her visit to the Warsaw Zoo and CORRECTIONS TO FROGCALL 134 & APOLOGIES their reptile house. Many of the frogs enclosures had detailed, well researched FROG-O-GRAPHIC COMPETITION WINNERS & CALENDAR information for visitors and beautifully presented habitats. We felt as though we were there seeing the frogs ourselves. FATS congratulated Marion Anstis on breaking new ground, in the superior quality of her book “Tadpoles and Frogs of Australia”, which won the Whitley Silver Medal for best book on Australian natural history, in 2014. Our main speaker Gerry Swan had us in total fascination as he described life in the open trenches - ten years of involvement Senior Pet Frog winner Christian Hofmann with Litoria peroni “Beau” with fauna protection during the construction of the biggest high pressure The Pobblebonk Limnodynastes dumerilii dumerilii in the 2015 FATS gas line trench in Australia. All the calendar was photographed by Aaron Payne. Apologies to Aaron (and vegetation within a 30 metre wide trench is Karen Russell) for the mistake/s on who the photographer was. removed, carefully returned and rehabilitated back to its original condition after the pipe is laid, ensuring that seed beds etc are not lost. Native animals including frogs, caught in the trench are removed or make their own way out via ramps, often providing unique encounters. http://pipeliner.com.au/news/nacap_compl etes_wallumbilla_to_darling_downs_pipeli ne/012063/ The meeting ended with a tasty Christmas supper, guessing competition and lots of good conversation. MW FROG-O-GRAPHIC COMPETITION 2015 n 2008 FATS conducted our first Frog- IO-Graphic competition. This proved very successful as we have many creative AMPHIBIAN LICENCE RETURNS DUE 1 APRIL 2015 people in the group who take marvellous All licensed native animal keepers are required to maintain a fauna photos, do incredible drawings and art record book and lodge it with the Wildlife Licensing and works, can sculpt, potter or create frog do- Management Unit DOH NSW NPWS each year. dahs from just about anything. So start The e-book is the fastest and most efficient way to do this, but it can painting, drawing, photographing or alternatively be done in a paper book by licence holders who do not whatever you do to capture the essence of a have access to a computer. frog. We look forward to seeing your entries. The competition for FATS members http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/wildlifelicences/electronicFaun opens Friday 1st August 2015. More aRecordBook.htm information in next April newsletter. AW P2 Frogcall 135 February 2015 FROM RAGS TO RICHES AND BACK AGAIN: FLUCTUATIONS IN THE GREEN AND GOLDEN BELL FROG LITORIA AUREA POPULATION AT NOWRA ON THE SOUTH COAST OF NEW SOUTH WALES bstract: Systematic (time constrained) and targeted Asurveys were conducted from 1996-2014 for the green and golden bell frog Litoria aurea on the Crookhaven River floodplain, east of Nowra on the south coast of New South Wales. In April 2008, a large number of metamorphlings were observed at Brundee Swamp Nature Reserve. This was followed by a significant recruitment of frogs so that by February 2010 L. aurea were recorded Amplecting Bell Frogs at Brundee Swamp NP breeding nearby in Worrigee and Terara Swamps. At the end of April 2010 tens of thousands of metamorphling L. aurea dispersed from these wetlands across the floodplain. Management So-called explosive breeding events have been reported for As a result of the Regional Forestry Agreement this species before but never have they been documented. In reserves such as Brundee Swamp, Saltwater December 2010 L. aurea again bred in Worrigee (and Swamp and Worrigee, totalling some 640 ha of L. presumably Terara Swamp) and in early April 2011 adult and aurea habitat, came under the management of the sub-adult animals appeared to have dispersed a distance of NSW NPWS in 2001 (NPWS 2008). At that time approximately 4 km south-west and 11 km to the south-east of the reserves were modelled as potential habitat for Brundee Swamp. the frog, but it was not known how significant the sites were. The portion of Worrigee NR now within the reservation system was slated for urban development and this would have reduced L. aurea habitat directly by piping creeks and reducing vegetation cover and indirectly by increased mortality from domestic pets and moving vehicles. Currently there are 384 ha adjacent to Worrigee NR vested for gazettal. A management plan for the Crookhaven population of L. aurea was prepared by the author for the Department of Conservation (DEC 2008). Data on this population has expanded considerably over the last six years and the plan requires updating. Outside the Reservation system the management of the Crookhaven population of L. aurea has been reactionary. There have been two referrals to the Metamorphling Bell Frogs on Swamp Paperbark at Commonwealth under the EPBC Act (1979) (Gaia Brundee Swamp Research 2010b and c). A review of the This expansion in distribution and abundance resulted in the management of L. aurea in the area is currently recolonisation of historic L. aurea sites at Culburra and being undertaken (Daly et al. in prep.). The present colonisation of other parts of the catchments where the species study indicates that potential breeding, refuge and was never previously recorded. The recovery was not dispersal habitat for L. aurea must be conserved sustained and from March 2013 to March 2014 the species over the entire landscape to facilitate persistence had declined in abundance and distribution. Most of the and possible recovery of a species that may be recorded breeding occurred in ephemeral wetlands: dispersal absent from an area for many years. The absence from these sites involved movements over highly modified of frogs from a site for a time does not justify the rural and urban landscapes. Refuge sites populated outside the dismissal of that site as potential habitat, nor does breeding events were strongly associated with stands of it justify the removal of habitat for the species.