South Western Australia supports a unique freshwater fish fauna including a high proportion of species that are found nowhere else in the world.  Many of these are showing declines in distribution and abundance due to a variety of environmental and human influences including habitat destruction, increases in water temperature and salinity, land use change and development of water resources to support agricultural and drinking water supply.

Participants will join researchers from the Albany campus of UWA in a walk and talk along the Goodga River near Albany.  Informative discussions will cover distribution, migration, reproduction and management of some of Australia’s most threatened freshwater fish. The researchers are currently involved in a project  focussing on the Spotted Minnow, known from only three catchments  in Western Australia, and two species of pygmy perch including the Balston’s Perch which has undergone significant declines in abundance and distribution, and the Little Pygmy Perch which was only known to science as recently as 2011.

Participants will have the opportunity to see one of Australia’s rarest fish species, the Spotted Minnow.