Freshwater Fish Group & Fish Health Unit

Awesome project and great effort from the Winjan Rangers, members of our team and the HRRT. Let’s keep reducing these feral crustaceans and hope to get Marron and Gilgies back!

🎣 The Great Yabby Fish-Out is Back! 🦞

The nets are out, the excitement is building, and the yabbies are… well… trying their best to stay hidden! 😄

Last week kicked things off in a big way, with an impressive 2000+ yabbies counted across the catch! 📊 As the days went on, numbers gradually dropped — a promising sign that the efforts are making a real impact.

This week, we’re back at it again! 💪
Day 1 saw the amazing Winjan Rangers teaming up with researchers from Murdoch University’s Harry Butler Institute, hauling in around 500 yabbies 👏

That’s a strong start — and while the numbers are still high, we’re hopeful. 🤞 Over the next couple of days, with a bit of luck (and a lot of hard work), we’re aiming to see those numbers continue to decline.

Every yabby removed helps protect our waterways and ecosystems 🌿💧 — so this is more than just a fish-out, it’s a powerful community effort!

📍 Stay tuned for updates as the week unfolds… will the numbers keep dropping? Let’s find out! 👀

The Australian Institute of Marine Science and Charles Darwin University are seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow to research Crimson Snapper Biology and Stock Structure.

🏢 AIMS@CDU
📍 Darwin, Northern Territory
🗓️ Full-time, 3-year
💰 $100,862 to $110,957 per annum
🚨 Deadline: Friday 22 May 2026

This postdoc position will improve our understanding of Crimson Snapper (Lutjanus erythropterus) stock structure and biology across northern Australia. The knowledge generated will underpin sustainable harvest and management of this important commercial and recreational species into the future.

👀 For more details and to apply: https://careers.aims.gov.au/page.php?pageID=160&windowUID=0&AdvertID=907936

Sawfish art, guitarfish art, hermit crabs in Western Australia, fire and cyclones

A newly published study by Jake Daviot and colleagues demonstraed that artificial habitats (like farm dams and urban drains) can support threatened freshwater species.

In this open-access paper in Pacific Conservation Biology, it was demonstrated that artificial habitats can provide viable refuge for the Vulnerable Carter's Freshwater Mussel (Westralunio carteri) in south-western Australia.

https://connectsci.au/pc/article/32/2/PC25073/271772/Artificial-habitats-provide-refuge-for-a

A new species of freshwater fish was described today from the Kimberley region of Western Australia by Michael Hammer, Glenn Moore, Gerry Allen, Mark Adams and Peter Unmack
https://mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5750.4.3
The species named is derived from the Ngarinyin name for this fish.

Description of a freshwater eeltail catfish (Teleostei: Plotosidae) from sandstone habitat in the eastern Kimberley, Western Australia | Zootaxa The Kimberley region of north-western Australia is an exceptional region for endemic freshwater fishes. During a survey program in partnership with local land and sea rangers in the eastern Kimberley in 2014, an unusual morphotype of an eeltail catfish (Plotosidae) was recorded, featuring a moderate...

The team is back in Onslow this weekend downloading our sawfish acoustic receiver array and managed to catch a couple of Green Sawfish pups.

Bremer Bay on Western Australia’s south coast looks OK