Hi-tech acoustic fish tracking

The sound of constant hammering is not what most people would call beautiful, but it’s a sound that brings joy to Phil Palmer, Reserve Manager of Scottsdale Reserve on Ngunnawal Country, NSW. A weekend of tree planting at Scottsdale Reserve restores the land and soul.

Join our special guests as they showcase an exciting project that supports the endangered Macquarie Perch in the Upper Murrumbidgee River.

How the Black Summer bushfires kick-started a restoration revolution at Scottsdale conservation reserve in NSW.

The bushfires of January 2020 left Australia’s second longest river, the Murrumbidgee, thick with ash and silt. Now, its waters are clearer thanks to a community-led effort to restore its health.

In this hour-long webinar you'll hear from Paul Bateman who has been part of a volunteer project controlling weeds along the Murrumbidgee River.

Representatives from conservation groups, NSW and ACT state governments and the community came together in Canberra recently to discuss the future of the upper Murrumbidgee River.

Some recently announced federal funding will directly support native fish species in the upper Murumbidgee River.

For the past 10 months I've been leading a project to install a suite of nest boxes at Scottsdale Reserve on Ngunnawal country in southern NSW as part of our ongoing efforts to restore the reserve after bushfire.

Right up in the northern corner of Scottsdale Reserve, up near the Murrumbidgee River, there's a rocky outcrop that retains much of its pre-European beauty, having never been ploughed or pasture improved.

In this turbulent 2020 year Jord’s annual Bush Heritage trip was hosted on the Tarcutta Hills Reserve to “do some good”, have some rest and relaxation and strengthen team bonding. This COVID year we could not be joined by our workmates from overseas and interstate but nevertheless people from our Sydney and Newcastle offices took part in an activity which has become an annual institution at Jord.

In February this year about 73% (1006ha) of Scottsdale Reserve burnt in the Clear Range bushfire. Around 84% of its native grasslands were affected and more than 50% of the reserve’s woodlands burnt at such a high intensity that the native seed bank was destroyed.

I telephoned Phil Palmer the Scottsdale Reserve Manager, and unusually the telephone was not engaged.  He immediately requested that I not take my eye off the koala for a moment until he arrived.  About a minute later a very excited Phil arrived armed with his camera phone. Lo and behold it turned out to be the first confirmed record of a koala for the reserve (and my first proper look at a wild koala).  

It's been a very busy few weeks here at Bush Heritage. I have been out to our bushfire affected reserves in New South Wales to survey the impact alongside our Senior Leadership team, local reserve staff and ecologists.

On Saturday 1 February, the Orroral (Namadgi) and Clear Range fires swept over the Murrumbidgee River and onto the western half of our Scottsdale Reserve. This has been a tense and challenging time and we are eternally grateful for the heroic efforts of the RFS and the extraordinary people on the ground fighting for our beloved Scottsdale. Importantly, our people remain safe and our community strong.

As we know from this unrelenting bushfire season, a lot can change in the space of a weekend. When I wrote to you on Friday with an update, we were hopeful that our Scottsdale Reserve, located between Canberra and Cooma, would remain unscathed. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the NSW Rural Fire Service and our on-ground staff (themselves with personal property under threat), a large proportion of Scottsdale has been, and continues to be, impacted by bushfire. As you can imagine, it’s been a tense and challenging time.

Antia Brademann discovers that for the people who live and work on the upper Murrumbidgee River, it's more than just a waterway; it's a way of life that connects them all.

The bush regeneration gods have smiled on Scottsdale Reserve this week, right in time for our new grassland seeding project. After many months without rain, to our complete and total joy, it started raining on the Monday afternoon before seeds were sown! By 6pm Monday it was snowing and it continued to interchange between snow and rain all night.

I’ve grown up on rivers; I spent my childhood on the Murray River and then I spent 20 years on the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley, and now I’m down here living alongside the Murrumbidgee River. So, mountain rivers have always been a big part of my life.

It was a beautiful afternoon settling into my position on the bank of the great Murrumbidgee River to be part of the annual Platypus and Water Rat survey on Scottsdale Reserve in New South Wales.

I've just returned after spending 9 days being involved with our volunteers in the Adventurous Paddling Program, which is helping to improve fish habitat in the Murrumbidgee River near Scottsdale Reserve, as part of the Upper Murrumbidgee Demonstration Reach.

A group of dedicated volunteers is helping to shed light on Platypus populations in the upper Murrumbidgee River.

An extra hardy bunch of volunteers braved temperatures as low as -8 degrees to survey Platypus at Scottsdale Reserve during August! Though our volunteers were not disappointed, sightings were down this year and Platypus seemed more wary and shy.

A new state-of-the-art nursery at Scottsdale Reserve will generate up to 10,000 native plants a year with almost no environmental footprint, thanks to solar technology, wetland filtration and a waste water recycling system.

My husband and I are addicted to nature, but especially to any amphibious creature. Frogs are our absolute passion and whenever we get the chance to search for them, photograph them or just sit in silence and listen to them, we do.

The value of moths in nature is often undervalued, if not completely overlooked. But this incredibly diverse insect order underpins many food chains and ecosystems. From birds to bats, lizards and small mammals, moths and their larvae are important food sources for many species, and they also help pollinate some native plants.

Restoring the riverbanks of the Upper Murrumbidgee has provided new hope for the endangered Macquarie Perch.

In the last week of August 10 volunteers conducted the annual platypus survey on the Upper Murrumbidgee River at Scottsdale Reserve, in association with Cooma Waterwatch coordinator, Antia Brademan and Reserve Manger, Phil Palmer.

Chilly temperatures can’t deter a small group of Bush Heritage volunteers from getting to know one of one of Australia’s most iconic species – the Platypus – a little bit better.

This month has seen two volunteers wandering through the bush on Scottsdale in the semi-darkness, visiting the wetter areas, carrying with them iPads, microphones and thermometers, and performing esoteric rituals. No, we're not completely crazy, we're just taking a census of the frog population!

Staff at Scottsdale Reserve​ hosted the annual K2C (Kosciuszko to Coast) spring bird surveys on 9 October. A total of 82 species were recorded. Highlights included a new species for the survey list; a pair of Pied Butcherbirds at Stonehouse, south of Williamsdale.

Browse the latest conservation news from our ecologists and land managers, posted during May 2016.

At first glance, the striped legless lizard looks like a tiny colourful snake, with pink sides and a yellow throat. But its thick, fleshy tongue is unforked, it has visible ears, and two scaly flaps as hind legs. It munches on moths, crickets and spiders, and can spring more than 10cm into the air.

How long would it take, without being a professional photographer, to capture an image as special as this one? Although you can only see four wedge-tails in this photo there were actually five actively hunting this mob of roos.

All fish monitoring stations in a 90km long fish tracking array in the Upper Murrumbidgee River have now been installed thanks to project staff and some pretty dedicated volunteers. This was no mean feat, as deployment of the monitoring stations required 8-hour long paddles into remote sections of the river to ferry in the equipment, including lengths of railway iron that are used to anchor the monitoring stations in the river.

The carp trapping program at Bush Heritage Australia's Scottsdale Reserve is moving into its next phase, with a small team of inventors on board to design a heating system for the trap. What? Sounds like we are really trying hard to make those pesky carp just a little too comfortable? Perfectly correct!

NSW DPI (Fisheries), working with Bush Heritage Australia at Scottsdale Reserve have now completed their European carp tagging operation. As a result there are 31 'electronically tagged' carp in the upper Murrumbidgee River. Any anglers catching a tagged carp will be given a reward for releasing and reporting the 'catch and release' of the fish.

The bird surveys, which are part of our Kosciuszko 2 Coast partnership, have started on their 6th year, with plenty of helpers and plenty of birds to see. A total of 87 species were recorded, which is a high number for the autumn surveys when many of the summer migrants have departed the region.

Six European carp were electronically tagged by NSW Fisheries staff at Scottsdale Reserve last week to help shed light on when and where carp move along the upper Murrumbidgee River. This information is currently a key knowledge gap in the upper Murrumbidgee catchment and is critical for the better management of this pest fish species in upland river systems.

A series of acoustic telemetry receivers have now been deployed in a 20km stretch of the Upper Murrumbidgee River, centered around Bush Heritage Australia's Scottsdale Reserve. This hi tech fish monitoring equipment will be used to track carp and native fish to help threatened fish species management.

There's a very exciting project that was finished at Scottsdale this week! Nearly four years in the planning, design and funding the Gungoandra Creek rock weir and fish way has been successfully constructed over the last three weeks. It's the most significant component of the erosion control plan that volunteer soil consultant Peter Fogarty has helped Scottsdale with.