Our national threatened species list does not include many native fish species that are in trouble
The Dalhousie hardyhead was listed as Critically Endangered under Australian environmental law in 2024 although experts from the Australian Society for Fish Biology identified that it met the criteria to be listed at threatened in 1992. Image: Michael Hammer
News story
23 October 2024
A shortage of taxonomists and a backlog in assessments means many native fish species that are at risk of extinction are not yet listed as threatened.
Associate Professor Mark Lintermans at the University of Canberra, a leading Australian threatened freshwater fish expert says there are many freshwater fish species that should be listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, but have not yet been assessed by the Australian Government.
“The EPBC Act threatened species list often trails scientific knowledge by decades. For example, the three freshwater fish species listed in August (2024) were first identified as nationally threatened by the Australian Society for Fish Biology in 1992 for the Dalhousie catfish and hardyhead and 2001 for the Dalhousie goby. This illustrates just how far behind the EPBC list is for freshwater fish.
Associate Professor Lintermans says that the Species Expert Assessment Plan (SEAP) process that was funded by the Australian Government as part of the 2019-20 bushfires response was very effective at getting more native fish that are at risk of extinction onto the list.
"With those three recent fish listings the tally of EPBC-listed freshwater fishes is now 63, an astonishing increase of 60% since the 2020 fires. Most of those additional species came through the SEAP process.
According to the Australian Government the SEAP process aimed to accelerate the speed and number of listing assessments by utilising expert scientific groups to undertake listing assessments on groups of species, such as freshwater fishes, or ecological communities. The experts developed status reviews, listing assessments and conservation advices that met EPBC Act requirements.
"But there are still many more Australian freshwater fish that need to be listed under the EPBC Act," said Associate Professor Lintermans.
"The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has identified almost 90 Australian freshwater fishes as threatened using globally recognised criteria.
"And in addition to those species, it is estimated that one third of Australian freshwater fish are still to be named, with a shortage of fish taxonomists and positions significantly hampering fish conservation.
"Without a formal scientific name it is hard to attract the attention of government, and the community, and we risk losing several species before they even get a name."
