Environmental Trust grant improves real estate for frogs!

An exciting new addition has been recently added to the Brickpit: six new corrugated iron tanks will provide protected homes for the endangered Green and Golden Bell Frog. You can have a bird’s-eye view of these ponds from the Brickpit Ringwalk.

The ponds are part of a project that has been assisted by the NSW Government through its Environmental Trust to reduce predation on the bell frog. This program funds projects that contribute to the ongoing sustainable management and stewardship of significant environmental assets and services in New South Wales.

Being a frog is not easy. Frogs tend to be defenceless and tasty, with waterbirds, reptiles and other frogs being natural predators. This natural load has been increased with the addition of other introduced fauna including plague minnow (a fish), foxes, cats, and rats. Bell frogs are vulnerable to predation at every stage of their life cycle; loss of individuals from a population due to predation intensifies the impacts of other threats such as introduced disease or habitat loss.

Sydney Olympic Park has been caring for Green and Golden Bell Frog habitat for the past 25 years and the Brickpit is regarded as providing the most important and secure habitat. The purpose of the new ponds is to promote survival of adult frogs, and to protect tadpoles and juveniles from predation. This will contribute to survivorship of the endangered bell frog at Sydney Olympic Park by promoting both population size and genetic diversity.

• A net covers all six ponds to reduce the predation by birds, cats, and foxes.
• The above ground tanks will be inaccessible to competing ground frogs and free from fish.
• Two of the ponds will be salted to increase salinity with the aim of reducing transmission of the potentially lethal disease caused by chytrid fungus.
• Dark basalt rock gabions will provide warm refuges during winter.