Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00106:body:0:p17
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00106
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 45557–48502

scarce in the lower Murray River (Trueman 2011).
The population in the Queanbeyan River and in Googong Reservoir (its dam across the Queanbeyan River completed in 1979) is considered to be effectively extinct (Lintermans pers. comm., 2015). Upstream of Googong Reservoir, a translocated population was established in the upper Queanbeyan River soon after the completion of the dam (Lintermans 2013a). The fish were translocated from Googong Reservoir after monitoring showed that natural breeding was no longer occuring in the reservoir due to a waterfall preventing access to riverine habitats (Lintermans 2013a). This population was considered to have declined based on observations from net surveys for the species between 2001–2006, and given there was no evidence of detectable recruitment since 2001 (Lintermans 2013a). Monitoring of the upper Queanbeyan River since 2006 has only detected a single individual (in 2007), and it is likely that the species is now effectively extinct in this catchment (Lintermans 2013a; Lintermans pers. comm., 2015).
In the Murray-Darling Basin, Macquarie perch are typically found in the cool, upper reaches of river catchments (Cadwallader 1981; Lintermans 2007; Trueman 2011), however recent analysis of oral history records, newspaper records and photographs has identified that in some Victorian catchments the species was also once considered abundant in the mid to lower reaches (Trueman 2011). A summary analysis of these historical records made the conclusion that in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, the species was most abundant in upland zones. In Victoria the species was most abundant in slopes zones of river catchments but it was also noted that the species could not reach the higher 'upland' and 'montane' elevations in some catchments due to waterfall barriers, therefore possibly influencing the analysis (Trueman 2011). In the Ovens and Goulburn river catchments in Victoria especially, the species was commonly caught in lagoons in the 'slopes' and 'lowland' zones (Trueman 2011).
While analysis of the oral history records has concluded that the species was most abundant in upland and slopes zones of river catchment in the Murray-Darling Basin, there are a number of reliable records of the species having once been common in some of the lowland habitats of the Victorian rivers connecting to the Murray River (Cadwallader 1977; 1981; Mallen-Cooper & Brand 2007; Trueman 2011).

    5.2 Present natural distribution

While there are existing populations of Macquarie perch in the Murray-Darling Basin and in eastern drainage catchments in New South Wales (Figure 3), populations are often small and geographically isolated (Lintermans 2007; Faulks et al., 2010; Pavlova et al., 2017a). The species is now absent from much of its former range. In New South Wales, the species still occurs in parts of the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee in the Murray-Darling Basin, and