Diario de brendancasey

ENVIRONMENTALLY conscious students from Village High School have been clearing areas of weeds in Inverloch to assist the native flora and fauna to thrive, and in particular to help protect the threatened Swamp Skink.

As part of their VCE/VM work-related skills class, a few of the year eleven students were keen to undertake work where they could contribute directly to the local ecology and environment. Village High School teacher running the project, Therese Carlisle said, “They definitely all have this wonderful kind of moral compass and also an affinity for the environment.”

The students have undertaken three working sessions alongside the Gippsland Conservation Society, which organised one of their members, Dr Brendan Casey, to educate and guide the students.

In October last year, Dr Casey identified a new native species in Inverloch – the Swamp Skink, Lissolepis coventryi. Since that time, he has been advocating for the skink to be better protected, as it is becoming threatened due to urban development and weeds overtaking its natural habitat.
“(Dr Casey) was a wonderful source of knowledge,” said Ms Carlisle. “He was amazing in terms of sharing lots of that knowledge with the students and giving them a real sense of purpose as well.”

Over the sessions, the students could see the difference they made in removing weeds and allowing the native grasses the opportunity to grow. “They had three days (on site), and they all worked really, really hard in that time and filled up huge green bags of weeds each time,” said Ms Carlisle. Ms Carlisle commented that it also gave the students purpose and a meaningful experience without expecting anything in return, as they talked about the importance of protecting the fragile ecosystems and biodiversity of the area.

“The work done by the students under Therese’s supervision is the single most important action to have ever taken place to try to support the swamp skinks of Inverloch,” said Dr Casey. “The importance of the weed removal by hand in the swamp skink habitat is, in my opinion, likely to give them a chance to persist a bit longer. The students from Village HS are the first and only people in our community to have done something to help. Please let me express my thanks to them again for their brilliant work.”

MOST days I walk along an Inverloch (Gippsland, Australia) path where I can look down at Swamp Skinks basking outside their grassy burrows. Sometimes they tilt their little heads and look up at me.

This path was extended and repaired as part of a housing estate, enabling the local community and visitors to walk through and observe the wonders of a fragile intertidal ecosystem. It also exposed an extant population of a now very rare lizard that was until recently hidden from people.

In March 2023 the Eastern Mourning Skink, aka Lissolepis coventryi or Swamp Skink, was listed as ‘Endangered’ under the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, mainly because across their entire distribution range their habitat is almost all gone.

Six months later, I noticed a small lizard disappear off the edge of the path at Inverloch. Initially I thought nothing of it. It bothered me, though; this lizard was much larger than the skink species I have learned to identify on my daily walk. I wondered if it might be a Swamp Skink but I thought there was no way an undocumented population could persist in Inverloch.

With the help of volunteers from the South Gippsland Conservation Society, we placed a terra-cotta roof tile near where the skink was observed, and a game-trail automated camera pointed at the roof tile. The roof tile was intended to be a ‘stage’ for the camera.

When the data card from the camera was retrieved I was astounded to see dozens of images capturing lizards that were identified as Swamp Skinks. Careful observations of the Swamp Skinks at Inverloch have revealed at least five individuals: a juvenile, gravid females and, on a sequence of camera images, a couple mating, confirming the location as a breeding site.

When conditions are right, the Eastern Mourning Skinks can be seen basking or moving along the shallow burrows they build around the grass tussocks.

Within the habitat of the Swamp Skinks of Inverloch are at least four other skink species: Metallic Cool-skink, Blotched Blue-tongue, Golden Water Skink and Glossy Grass Skink. The Glossy Grass Skink is also endangered; their habitat is similar to the Swamp Skink.

This habitat comprises two threatened plant communities: natural damp grassland of the Victorian coastal plains, and assemblages of species associated with open-coast salt-wedge estuaries of western and central Victoria ecological communities. The size of the Swamp Skink population at Inverloch is unknown, as is the range of their habitat.

In some places, new houses have been built literally right on top of their habitat. Increasing numbers of people are coming into direct contact with them. For the first time in their existence, this population is experiencing humans, ready or not.

There is every chance it will end badly for the Swamp Skinks. Small changes to the environment could quickly expose this ancient population to conditions they cannot survive. For example, a king tide might flush out individual skinks into people’s fences and yards or on to new roads where last season there were dry, grassy mounds.

I hope things go well for the Swamp Skinks and Glossy Grass Skinks of Inverloch but the trend for these species is a downward trajectory once humans enter their habitat. The next step is listing them as ‘critically endangered’, meaning captive populations will be required to prevent extinction.

If the Swamp Skinks of Inverloch disappear, as has happened to many of the known populations, it will be a silent event and unwitnessed.

There is no targeted management plan or habitat protection in place to support them. Above everything else, to persist the Swamp Skinks of Inverloch need to have their habitat protected. Maybe then they can coexist with humans. We are about to find out.

Brendan Casey