The Australian Grayling is a threatened fish, once locally abundant across south-east Australia including Tasmania. Grayling are diadromous, with the adult fish spawning in freshwater, larvae drifting downstream to the sea, and juveniles migrating back upstream to the freshwater to grow into adults. Because of this common migratory life-cycle, man-made barriers such as weirs, dams and culverts, are a key threat to grayling and other species. The potential barriers to fish passage across the Cradle Coast region have been assessed, ranked and are now being ground-truthed and prioritised. Grayling surveys were carried out in January 2025. A future stage of the project will work to remove or modify barriers to fish passage, building on a limited State Government barrier-removal effort 20 years ago. The project aims to improve aquatic ecosystem health by reconnecting biomes, and is expected to benefit other native and threatened species, and the recreational Australian Whitebait fishery.
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Authors:
Iona Flett
