National Recovery Plan for the Barred Galaxias (Galaxias fuscus)

Summary

The Barred Galaxias (Galaxias fuscus) is a small, scaleless, non-migratory freshwater fish endemic to a small upland area in central Victoria, on the Murray-Darling Basin side of the Great Dividing Range. It has suffered an extensive decline in range and abundance, and now occurs only in small, isolated, remnant populations in short sections of small headwater streams.

All remaining populations are at high continuing risk from predation by and competition from alien Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout, and from deleterious stochastic events such as bushfire and drought. This interplay between biotic threats and the increasing frequency and severity of physical threats from climate change, combined with the severely fragmented and isolated nature of remaining populations in fragile headwater catchments, create a very high extinction risk. The Barred Galaxias is listed as Endangered under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

This national Recovery Plan details the species’ distribution, ecology, threats to survival and recovery objectives and actions necessary to ensure long-term survival of the Barred Galaxias.