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Recovery of the red-finned blue-eye:

informing action in the absence of

controls and replication

Jim Radford, Rob Wager and Adam Kerezsy

Summary

Red-finned blue-eye Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis is a small fish that is endemic
to Great Artesian Basin springs on Edgbaston Reserve in central Queensland. The
species is Endangered and under serious threat from the invasive introduced fish
gambusia Gambusia holbrooki, which is present in many springs and causes local
extirpation of red-finned blue-eye. At the time of its discovery in 1990, red-finned
blue-eye was known from only eight springs. The non-government conservation
organisation, Bush Heritage Australia, acquired Edgbaston in 2008, by which time
the number of occupied springs had reduced to four. Since then, the number of
naturally occurring populations has declined to one. However, a program of
managed translocations and quarantining populations from gambusia using
barrier fencing has established six translocated populations, such that red-finned
blue-eye occupied seven springs in late 2016. Given the small number of