Advice to consent and determining authorities
- Negotiate with relevant authorities to encourage the identification, assessment and modification of natural resource management plans and policies to minimise impacts on McCulloch’s anemonefish and associated bubbletip anemone habitat (Medium priority).
Collate and review existing information
- Collate and synthesise data collected to quantify the significance of high and moderate risk threat interactions with McCulloch’s anemonefish and identify knowledge gaps for the purpose of targeting future research activities (High priority).
Community and stakeholder liaison, awareness and education
- Implement education initiatives to improve identification and awareness of the status of McCulloch’s anemonefish and ways to minimise impacts on the species by preparing and distributing appropriate advisory material (High priority).
Habitat protection and rehabilitation
- As the McCulloch’s anemonefish is reliant on its host bubbletip anemones that are subject to elevated water temperatures, recovery and restoration of this critical habitat should be investigated and implemented (High priority).
- Manage anthropogenic threats that result in changes to hydrology/ water/sediment flows in nearshore environments, particularly the Lord Howe Island lagoon, that may result in unfavourable conditions for bubbletip anemones (High priority).
- Implement a rehabilitation program in areas where bubbletip anemones have significantly declined using transplanted anemones to repopulate (High priority)
Compliance / enforcement
- The export of aquarium fish and host anemones from Lord Howe Island should continue to be prohibited to reduce the risk of McCulloch’s anemonefish being targeted by the illegal trade (high priority).
- Disturbances that may result in anemone mortality, such as localised water pollution from diffuse source runoff or maritime source pollution, eutrophication resulting from groundwater contamination which can exacerbate the impacts of climate change, should be identified and addressed through local management actions (medium priority).
- Ensure compliance with the ban on collecting McCulloch’s anemonefish from the wild by communicating with aquarium enthusiasts using a number of communication mediums (e.g. newsletters, online media) (low priority).
Enhance, modify or implement NRM planning processes to minimize adverse impacts on threatened species
- Continued implementation of comprehensive and adequate no-take areas within the remaining distribution of the McCulloch’s anemonefish to conserve biological diversity, and maintain ecosystem integrity, ecosystem function and resilience against climate change (High priority).
- Using regulatory powers of the Lord Howe Island Marine Park, to implement measures to conserve and enhance remaining McCulloch’s anemonefish habitat. (High priority).
- Implementation of management actions on Lord Howe Island to address the threat of anchoring impacts on remaining habitat (High priority).
- Implement emergency response procedures to reduce the threat of oil and chemical spill impacts on McCulloch’s anemonefish populations (Medium priority).
Research / monitoring
- Continued monitoring of sites to identify local long-term trends on available information to further clarify changes in population abundance (High priority).
- Obtain field data on the distribution and abundance of McCulloch’s anemonefish across all habitats and use this to estimate total population size and total breeding population size (High priority).
- Implement further research regarding the biology of the species to assess reproduction, generation time, survival and longevity (High priority).
- Implement studies to develop techniques for cultivation and translocation of bubbletip anemones (High priority).
- Research to identify critical population thresholds and constraints on the size of the breeding population of McCulloch’s anemonefish and whether translocations or captive breeding can be used to increase the breeding population (High priority)
- Development of a detailed translocation plan and undertake translocations to establish additional, viable populations to spread extinction risk (reintroduction or assisted colonisation) or to bolster populations (reinforcement) (Medium Priority).
- Research focusing on determining the adaptability and resilience of McCulloch’s anemonefish and bubbletip anemones to increasing water temperatures (Medium priority).
Survey / mapping
- Surveys to assess and map the distribution of McCulloch’s anemonefish and bubbletip anemones across all habitats, to establish critical monitoring baselines (High priority).
- Update habitat mapping of Lord Howe Island to further clarify the distribution and abundance of suitable habitat for the McCulloch’s anemonefish to be used in spatial planning (High priority).
