IN APRIL THIS YEAR, QFS volunteers returned to Kroombit Tops National Park to conduct further surveys for the critically endangered Kroombit Tinkerfrog (Taudactylus pleione) and Kroombit Treefrog (Litoria kroombitensis) as part of QFS’s Kroombit Threatened Frogs Project – a project funded by the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage’s Community Sustainability Action grant scheme.
Despite good rain preceding these surveys, conditions at Kroombit Tops were drier than expected, and few frogs were heard or seen at sites surveyed by QFS volunteers. With conditions suboptimal for detection of target species, nocturnal surveys were scaled back, allowing more time for the collection/retrieval of the 50 or so automated sound recorders deployed at sites across Kroombit Tops in December 2020. Thanks to the stellar efforts of our volunteers, all recorders deployed were retrieved successfully.
Sound files have been downloaded from almost all of the recording units deployed at Kroombit during summer, and we now have over 100,000 one-minute recordings ready for analysis!
Acoustic recorders will have hopefully captured calling activity under conditions more suitable for the detection of our target species (in particular the Kroombit Tinkerfrog). The analysis of these recordings should provide us with a clearer picture of the current abundance and distribution of threatened frog species at Kroombit Tops.
We are looking for volunteers to assist us with the important task of analysing these call recordings! If you’re interested in assisting with the review and analysis of call recordings, get in touch with our event and initiatives coordinator, Jono Hooper, at: events_initiatives[at]qldfrogs.asn.au.
Our next scheduled trip to Kroombit Tops National Park will be in August 2021. QFS volunteers will be erecting pig-exclusion fencing around an area of critical habitat for the Kroombit Tinkerfrog where pigs pose a particular threat (see Frogsheet Autumn 2021 issue).
QFS volunteers will be returning to Kroombit Tops in December 2021 to conduct surveys for the Kroombit Tinkerfrog, Kroombit Treefrog and Tusked Frog (Adelotus brevis), and for one last time in late summer/early autumn of 2022.
If you would like to know more about these future trips or would like to join us as volunteer, please contact our event and initiatives coordinator, Jono Hooper, at: events_initiatives[atqldfrogs.asn.au.
Ed Meyer
