No record of some threatened species in area government says it's protecting them

Experts say growling grass frog and southern brown bandicoot not likely to be found at Endeavour Fern Gully

Lisa Cox

Fri 16 Feb 2018 21.10 GMTLast modified on Sat 17 Feb 2018 23.18 GMT

Experts have cast doubt on government claims the Coalition is funding a conservation project in Victoria’s Endeavour Fern Gully to benefit threatened species – because the listed species are unlikely to occur in the area.

Endeavour Fern Gully is a 27-hectare (65 acre) rainforest property on the Mornington Peninsula. The environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, says the government had funded a broad Green Army project that “improves habitat through weed control and promotes greater conservation awareness of native vegetation in remnant bushland at Endeavour Fern Gully”.

“This is where a number of threatened species are known or likely to be, including the grey-headed flying-fox, the southern brown bandicoot (eastern), the growling grass frog and the clover glycine.”

Yet ecologists said there was no record of some of these species in the area.

Geoff Heard, a lecturer of wildlife ecology at Charles Sturt University who studies the growling grass frog, said the species was unlikely to be found at that site.

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