Access the original blog post written for the Save Our Seas Foundation here
By Barbara Wueringer
One of the goals of my project was to find out if sawfish are or have the potential to be a flagship species for the geographical region and ecosystems that they are found in. As this first field season for Sharks And Rays Australia comes to an end, and with it the Project “Sawfishes – spreading the love”, it is time for an assessment. It has been an unforgettable year, and this is what this post is about – the other side of our sawfish research – that, what comes under the umbrella of our flagship species. This post is a tribute to the ecosystems that we have entered over the last year, the people we have met, the animals that we were lucky enough to encounter and some unforgettable moments. Enjoy!
As we came closer to this large puddle that used to be the middle of the road, we saw a soaking wet emu getting up and running away. We had interrupted his bath.
The Kownayama Indigenous Land and Sea Rangers, Traditional Land Owners and SARA field assistants are inducted into the methods used for capturing, tagging and releasing sharks, rays and sawfish for research.
Barbara explains our research and our methods to the Gangalidda-Garawa Rangers of the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation. A sawfish forms part of this groups’ logo, indicating the traditional importance of these animals in the region.
This freshwater crocodile Crocodylus johnstoni was around 2.5 m long.
Our volunteer Laura releases a juvenile eagle ray Ateobatus narinari.
A black whip snake Demansia vestigiata swims across the river and almost into our gill net. A second one was rescued from the net and delivered to the other side of the river.
A wedge-tail eagle Aquila audax watches us from above
Every little dot in this image is a locust, and the swarm we drove through in the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria lasted for over 10 km!
A juvenile freshwater sawfish Pristis pristis is tied to the boat, and slowly brought into shallower water to be worked up.
While most people heard about this year’s el Nino event, which killed approximately 22% of the coral cover of the Great Barrier Reef, not so many people have heard about the extensive, and unexplained mangrove die-offs, that happened in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Kilometer long stretches of mangroves were affected. What will this mean for the animals that inhabit mangroves, and for the functionality of this important ecosystem?
Some of our research sites are hard to reach, as roads are easily washed away. Here we were on our way to Kowanyama.
A freshwater whip ray Himantura dalyensis that we caught measured 120 cm in disk width. Mitchell River, Kowanyama.
We just caught a bull shark Carcharhinus leucas!
Two white-bellied sea eagles Haliaeetus leucogaster soak up the warmth of the morning sun on a dead cabbage palm Coryphan utan. This palm grows to a height of about 20m, and at the age of 30 – 40 years produces a 5 m high inflorescence that carries about 1m million flowers. After fruiting the plant dies.
Jellyfish often make their way upstream into the brackish waters of the rivers leading into the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Our volunteer Stuart, who is a professional reptile handler, helped this black-headed python Aspidites melanocephalus across the road to prevent it from becoming road kill
