A critically endangered freshwater fish has made a big return to NSW’s Murray River waters for the first time in more than 10 years under a project to help save it from extinction. The Murray Hardyhead is a small fish (up to 9cm long) with an amazing ability to tolerate salinities higher than seawater. Considered extinct in NSW for more than a decade, this species was listed as critically endangered in 1999 and survived in just a handful of wetlands in northern Victoria and in the Riverland and Lower Lakes in South Australia.
But in late 2018, a collaborative effort between numerous committed organisations and individuals, relocated over 830 Murray Hardyhead from South Australia’s Riverland to Little Frenchman's Creek, an environmentally-watered wetland in far western NSW.
Three years on and the tiny fish are still thriving in their new home. Follow-up monitoring has revealed that several thousand Murray Hardyhead of numerous different sizes are now inhabiting Little Frenchman’s Creek, confirming that multiple spawning and recruitment events have been supported by this productive wetland.
The relocation is a joint project involving the NSW Department of Primary Industries Fisheries, Western Local Land Services, the Commonwealth Government, the SA Department of Environment and Water, Aquasave - Nature Glenelg Trust, the Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group, and the owners of the Wingillie Station in western NSW. Wingillie Station is owned by the Hazel L Henry Farmland Nature Refuges Trust, which has been working with the Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group and Commonwealth Environment Water Office for several years to improve the condition of the floodplain and wetland habitats across the station.
See Murray Hardyhead for more information about the species