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The Guardian
07-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Earless dragons were presumed extinct in Australia – now Daisy and Kip have sniffed out 13 of them
Wildlife detection dogs successfully sniffed out 13 critically endangered earless dragons in previously unknown burrows in Melbourne's west, after a training program launched by Zoos Victoria in 2023. The Victorian grassland earless dragon – Australia's most imperilled reptile – had not been seen for 50 years and was thought extinct before its remarkable rediscovery on privately owned grassland in 2023. Given this 'second chance' at survival, Garry Peterson, the zoo's general manager of threatened species, said the organisation launched intensive training and search efforts the same year. 'We're really lucky to have a second opportunity with this species that was presumed extinct,' Peterson said. But it wasn't going to be easy to find them. It's thought there are probably fewer than 200 dragons left in the wild and the short, nuggetty and extremely rare dragons often hid inside wolf spider burrows or under rocks, making them challenging to find using traditional survey techniques. That's where the zoo's dogs came in. After a year of training, Daisy, a 6-year-old lagotto romagnolo and Kip, an 8-year-old kelpie cross, had sniffed out a total of 13 of the wild dragons by March this year, in return for treats, cuddles, ball games and praise. Daisy mostly works with wildlife detection dog officer Dr Nick Rutter, who said it was a 'career highlight' when she finally found a dragon on her own in May 2024, making him feel 'an overwhelming cascade of joy'. The palm-sized reptiles were 'bloody gorgeous', he said, with intricate patterns down their backs and striking colours during the breeding season. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton's Clear Air column as a free newsletter Daisy and Kip were chosen for their safe behaviour around small animals, and experience surveying for threatened species, like Baw Baw frogs and freshwater turtles. Each undertook about 80 days of scent-based training and survey work, initially sniffing out a small number of captive animals and graduating to opportunistic lessons in the field when biologists came across a wild dragon. When assessed, the dog-handler teams detected earless dragons with speed and accuracy, according to results published on the National Environmental Science Program's Resilient Landscapes hub. Emma Bennett, who has researched the effectiveness of detection dogs in searching for rare species, said dogs provided a scent-based search method that was complimentary to traditional surveys using visual cues. 'If something is hidden, or camouflaged, in a burrow, and just difficult to see, it might be easy to smell,' she said. Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion Detection dogs were being successfully used in Australia, as well as globally, for finding threatened species, searching for invasive viruses and pathogens, and conducting bird and bat surveys at wind farms. Bennett, who has worked with detection dogs for 20 years and was not involved with the zoo project, said success relied on a strong partnership between human and hound. 'From the dog's perspective, the role of the human is to carry the ball around for when they do find something, and then to throw it,' Bennett said. Zoos Victoria also trained two other dogs, Sugar and Moss, to search for dragon scats – droppings roughly the size of corn kernels. While the dogs were effective at finding them, they were limited by how quickly scats were scavenged by ants and other invertebrates in the wild. Historical records show the Victorian grassland earless dragon was once recorded in St Kilda, Moonee Ponds and Sunbury, habitat that disappeared as housing and farmland expanded. Approximately 0.5% of suitable grassland habitat remains. Dr Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute – who named the Victorian grassland earless dragon as a distinct species in 2019 – said its rediscovery was a reminder that animals could still persist, even in places where they hadn't been seen in decades. 'They've shown amazing resilience,' she said. 'This little dragon has managed to hold on under really difficult circumstances.'
The Guardian
06-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
‘You just hope for the best': rarely seen froglets – the length of a grain of rice – released into small patch of Victorian wilds
More than 3,000 critically endangered Baw Baw frogs have been released in Victoria's east as part of a record-breaking conservation breeding program. Zoos Victoria's reintroduction of 3,000 tiny froglets and 40 adult frogs into the high-altitude forests of the Baw Baw plateau, about 120km east of Melbourne, was the largest in its breeding program for the species. With fewer than 500 individuals remaining in the wild, Deon Gilbert, a threatened species biologist with the zoo, was hopeful many of the new recruits would survive and bolster the dwindling population. Releasing the tiny froglets – roughly the length of a grain of rice and carefully reared by the zoo's specialist amphibian keepers – was nerve-racking, Gilbert said. 'You just hope for the best for all of them. It's up to them from there.' Adult frogs measure up to six-centimetres long. Once abundant, the species – found only on a 'really small patch of real estate on the Baw Baw plateau' – had suffered a 98% population crash mainly due to a disease called the chytrid fungus, Gilbert said. They also faced overlapping threats due to climate change, historic logging practices and development. Dr Kirsten Parris, a professor and amphibian ecologist at the University of Melbourne, said the Baw Baw frog was one of the rarest of Victoria's 38 frog species. Very few people had heard or seen the 'super cute' and 'chunky' frog, she said, given its small distribution in a relatively remote part of the state. No Baw Baw frogs were recorded in a recent citizen science frog census called Frog Month Victoria, she said, which received more than 1,200 records of frog calls from all parts of the state. They did, however, receive some calls of another nationally listed species – the vulnerable growling grass frog – from parts of Melbourne and the Bellarine peninsula. Baw Baw frogs had developed some specialised reproductive strategies, Parris said, which made it harder for populations to recover from threats such as chytrid fungus. 'It lays eggs in little nests in moist areas. The tadpoles have a semi-terrestrial life and then turn into little frogs,' she said. They put additional effort into making their eggs, but lay fewer – about 100 – compared with more common frogs, such as the pobblebonk frog that lays more than 1,000. In the wild, the Baw Baw frog's entire reproductive cycle happens underground in the absence of sunlight, Gilbert said. Tadpoles, which are 'pure white' from the lack of sunlight, survive thanks to huge yolk sacs. It could take four to six years for recently released froglets to reach maturity, he said. If they survived to adulthood, some might live up to 15 years old. Gilbert was quietly optimistic the new batch could help bolster wild populations, after successfully returning smaller numbers of frogs in recent years. A recent survey undertaken at a trial release site – a patch of suitable habitat where no wild Baw Baw frogs had been recorded – revealed the zoo-bred froglets were capable of surviving in the wild. 'I couldn't believe it, to be honest, when we went in to start surveying and were having all these frogs call back at us for the first time,' he said. Finding frogs in the forest was 'almost impossible', Gilbert said, particularly Baw Baws, which had a penchant for hiding under soil and leaf litter. So to help with tracking, the adult frogs were released fitted with radio transmitters attached to a small belt around their hips. The team would also rely on their trio of specialised wildlife detection dogs – Kip, Finn and Sugar – who were trained to systematically sniff out Baw Baw frogs and sit calmly until their handlers and biologists confirmed the discovery. The zoo's recovery team plan to check in on the latest arrivals in October, during a small window of time when male Baw Baws would be calling. It will be a long wait until then. These types of recovery programs were a 'lesson in patience', Gilbert said, adding it was important to share hopefulness and optimism when things were going in a positive direction.
