Survey guidelines for Australia’s threatened reptiles

INTRODUCTION

These survey guidelines provide guidance on what should be considered when planning and undertaking species presence surveys for threatened reptiles relevant to a referral to the Federal Environment Minister under the EPBC Act. The individual taxa (species or subspecies) accounts provide a guide as to the survey methods and effort that are appropriate for assessment of whether those listed taxa occur at or near a specified site (‘study area’). Consequently, the guidelines focus on assessing the presence or likelihood of presence of taxa in a study area, and not on an assessment of the abundance of individuals.
The survey guidelines are limited to recommending the effort with selected techniques to establish whether a target species is present or absent in a project area. A survey is interpreted as the first step in a process towards assessing the impact of a proposed project on any threatened reptile species. The approaches in each species profile should be regarded as a minimum and should be included in any general fauna survey program that seeks to determine the presence of species of conservation significance. If threatened species are found to be present during the survey, different techniques may be required to establish if the project area contains important habitat (shelter sites, foraging sites, water sources and movement corridors) for those threatened species.
The taxa accounts relate to the 48 terrestrial and freshwater reptile taxa that are classified as threatened under the EPBC Act (see Table 1) as at July 2010. They do not include the six marine reptile species currently listed as threatened by the EPBC Act (all of which are sea turtles). However, it is recognised that the EPBC Act threatened species list is dynamic and that survey guidelines are likely to be applied to some taxa not currently listed. Conversely, it is hoped that with ongoing conservation programs the populations of some taxa will recover and they can be removed from this list.
If habitat suitable for a threatened species occurs in the area, and an appropriate survey is not conducted to determine presence/absence, the department may follow the precautionary principle and assume that the species is in fact present.
In some cases, species have been so rarely recorded that it may be premature to outline a recommended survey method. In these situations a review of previous survey methods and their success rate is provided, but further research may be needed before guidelines can be set. All of these species are, by the nature of their listing, either rare or have very restricted distributions. Therefore, it is unlikely that we yet know enough about their ecology, reproduction or habitat use to say with confidence that any survey method or effort will guarantee a species detection. However, the standard survey methods recommended in this report will provide a baseline of survey effort required with adherence to the precautionary principle essential in the place of research results.

Table 1: Threatened reptile species (terrestrial and freshwater) listed under the EPBC Act as at July 2010.

Scientific name (as listed on EPBC Act)	Common name	EPBC Act Status *
Anomalopus mackayi	Long-legged worm skink	Vulnerable
Aprasia parapulchella	Pink-tailed worm lizard	Vulnerable
Aprasia pseudopulchella	Flinders Ranges worm lizard	Vulnerable
Aprasia rostrata rostrata	Hermite Island worm lizard	Vulnerable
Bellatorias obiri ^1	Arnhem Land egernia	Endangered
Christinus guentheri	Lord Howe Island gecko	Vulnerable
Coeranoscincus reticulatus	Three-toed snake-tooth skink	Vulnerable
Ctenophorus yinnietharra	Yinnietharra rock dragon	Vulnerable
Ctenotus angusticeps	Airlie Island ctenotus	Vulnerable
Ctenotus lancelini	Lancelin Island skink	Vulnerable
Ctenotus zastictus	Hamelin ctenotus	Vulnerable
Delma impar	Striped legless lizard	Vulnerable
Delma labialis	Striped-tailed delma	Vulnerable
Delma mitella	Atherton delma, legless lizard	Vulnerable
Delma torquata	Collared delma	Vulnerable
Denisonia maculata	Ornamental snake	Vulnerable
Egernia rugosa	Yakka skink	Vulnerable
Egernia stokesii aethiops	Baudin Island spiny-tailed skink	Vulnerable
Egernia stokesii badia	Western spiny-tailed skink	Endangered
Elseya belli	Namoi River elseya (Namoi River, NSW)	Vulnerable
Elusor lavarackorum	Gulf snapping turtle	Endangered
Elusor macruros	Mary River tortoise	Endangered
Emydura macquarii signata (Bellinger River, NSW) ^2	Bellinger River emydura	Vulnerable
Eulamprus leuraensis	Blue Mountains water skink	Endangered
Eulamprus tympanum marnieae	Corangamite water skink	Endangered
Furina dunmalli	Dunmall's snake	Vulnerable
Hoplocephalus bungaroides	Broad-headed snake	Vulnerable
Lepidodactylus listeri	Christmas Island gecko	Vulnerable
Lerista allanae	Retro slider	Endangered
Lerista vittata	Mount Cooper striped lerista	Vulnerable
Liasis olivaceus barroni	Olive python (Pilbara subspecies)	Vulnerable
Liopholis kintorei	Great Desert skink	Vulnerable
Liopholis pulcha longicauda	Jurien Bay skink	Vulnerable
Liopholis slateri slateri	Slater's skink, floodplain skink	Endangered
Lucasium occultum ^3	Yellow-snouted gecko	Endangered
Nangura spinosa	Nangur spiny skink	Critically endangered
Niveoscincus palfreymani	Pedra Branca or red-throated skink	Vulnerable
Notechis scutatus ater ^4	Krefft's tiger snake (Flinders Ranges)	Vulnerable
Oligosoma lichenigera	Lord Howe Island skink	Vulnerable
Ophidiocephalus taeniatus	Bronzeback snake lizard	Vulnerable
Paradelma orientalis	Brigalow scaly-foot	Vulnerable
Pseudemydura umbrina	Western swamp tortoise	Critically endangered
Rheodytes leukops	Fitzroy tortoise	Vulnerable
Tiliqua adelaidensis	Adelaide blue-tongue lizard	Endangered
Tympanocryptis pinguicolla	Grassland earless dragon	Endangered
Typhlops exocoeti	Christmas Island blind snake	Vulnerable
Underwoodisaurus sphyrurus	Border thick-tailed gecko	Vulnerable