Translocation of the threatened Growling Grass FrogLitoria raniformis: a case study

Abstract

Translocation is occasionally suggested as a last resort strategy for dealing with ‘unavoidable’ loss of Growling Grass Frog Litoria raniformis habitat in urbanising landscapes. However, examples of attempts to translocate an entire population of L. raniformis are rare and their success (or lack of success) is poorly documented in the literature. In this study, we detail the translocation of a population of L. raniformis from a farm dam being destroyed for residential development to a purpose-built wetland 480 m away.The population was translocated between November 2010 and May 2011. We used mark-recapture to estimate the number of frogs in the population prior to translocation. Visual counts of L. raniformis at the dam indicated a maximum of 39 adult frogs to be present while 355 frogs were marked over the course of a single season (November 2010 to March 2011).Translocation of 156 frogs and unassisted colonisation by 32 frogs resulted in an estimated 70% of adults marked at the dam moving to the wetland...