92 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
and data availability and reporting. Critically Endangered and Endangered scored
higher than Vulnerable in both these cases.
The evaluation metrics of EPBC-listed taxa that only occur in single states or
territories were not significantly different to those from taxa that occurred in
multiple jurisdictions (Table 7.2).
There were significant differences between state endemic species in the
monitoring coverage, management linkage, coordination, design quality and
demographic parameters. There were also differences, but less strongly so, between
the states for longevity, fit-for-purpose and periodicity.
Tasmania scored significantly higher than Queensland or Western Australia
for the evaluation metrics of management linkage, coordination, design quality,
fit-for-purpose, monitoring periodicity, and demographic parameters. Tasmania
scored significantly higher than Western Australia, but not Queensland, for
coverage (Table 7.2).
Discussion
Monitoring of freshwater fishes is difficult for several reasons. Freshwater habitats
are often turbid and so direct visual observation is problematic. Unlike other animal
groups, fish cannot be easily detected by indirect methods such as tracks, calls, nests,
signs or scats with direct methods such as netting or electrofishing usually employed
(Fig. 7.2). This difficulty in observing fish means that they have a low public profile
(out of sight, out of mind; they are not gaudy and easily seen like birds, or cuddly and
furry like mammals) and this reduced public profile has ramifications for resources
available for conservation and management. The competing human values associated
with fish means that scarce management resources are often directed to larger
species with recreational angling appeal, with smaller ‘forage’ fish receiving much
less attention. Once an animal becomes rare, detection is even more problematic, and
the distribution of fish across three dimensions (latitude, longitude and depth) and
highly dynamic environments (f loods, droughts) makes robust sampling difficult
and expensive. Consequently, rigorous monitoring of threatened fish species and
populations has only really developed over the last 20–30 years, with monitoring
often considered to be ‘second-rate’ science, and funding programs often imposing
arbitrary limits on the quantum of funds that can be devoted to monitoring (e.g.
5–7% of project costs). Tertiary institutions can also be reluctant to participate in
monitoring programs, because it usually requires a long-term commitment (decadal)
with limited scientific publication opportunities in the interim. Consequentially,
much existing monitoring is token, short-term or lacks inferential power (Field et al.
2007; Reynolds et al. 2016).
Monitoring is the ‘poor cousin’ of science: it is regularly underfunded (or
unfunded) and under-valued, and threatened freshwater fishes are no exception to