About this site

NSW Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC)
The NSW Department of Environment and Conservation has developed this site as part of its role in administering the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act. More than 60 wildlife experts, information specialists and photographers have been involved in collecting and presenting the information contained on this site (see acknowledgments).

Threatened species, populations and ecological communities
In New South Wales, native species, populations and ecological communities are listed as threatened under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act and the NSW Fisheries Management Act. This website provides information on all NSW threatened species listed under these Acts except for those listed as presumed extinct.

The Commonwealth Government also lists threatened species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). If a species is listed as threatened under NSW legislation is also listed under the Commonwealth legislation then its Commonwealth status is shown at the top of the individual profile.

Species Profiles
Each species, population and ecological community has a separate profile. Each profile contains information on the threatened status, physical description, distribution, likely habitat, threats and the management actions that are likely to improve the recovery of the species, population or ecological community. The profiles do not take the place of recovery plans. Where a species has not had a recovery plan prepared the suggested threats and conservation actions are based on references and the knowledge and experience of DEC Threatened Species Unit staff.

You can find the species profiles by typing the species name (common or scientific) into the search box at the top-right of each page. You can also find the profiles by clicking on the species name when you find it in a list (see below).

Threatened species lists
The website allows you to view a range of threatened species lists. Once a list is produced you can click on any of the species to access the individual profiles.

Threatened species lists for NSW
You can view a range of species lists for the whole of NSW including:

• all the threatened species sorted by scientific name
• all the threatened species sorted by common name
• all the threatened species sorted by type (animal, plant, ecological community, bird, fish etc.)

Threatened species lists for catchment management authority regions and sub-regions
You can view Catchment Management Authority threatened species lists for the 13 NSW Catchment Management Authority regions.

The lists for the CMA regions are compiled from known records contained in the NSW Wildlife Atlas and other licensed data. The records were validated by DEC Threatened Species Officers. Only those records, which indicate that an extant population is present in the CMA or sub-region, were used. Species listed as Presumed Extinct have been not been included. The lists will be reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis.

In many instances the Threatened Species Officers have also made predictions as to where a species or endangered ecological community may occur (but where there are no actual records). The criteria they used for making the prediction were, 1. Suitable habitat for the species or EEC exists within the area, 2. There are valid records in nearby areas and the officer is reasonably confident that if surveys were undertaken, the species or EEC will be detected.

To narrow-down your geographic search area this website has also defined sub-regions within the CMAs. You can find these sub-regions in each of the Browse Catchment Management Area pages.

Threatened Species Lists for Local Government Areas
Detailed lists for each council area are in preparation - in the meantime, user should identify which CMA sub-region(s) overlap with their council area(s) of interest.

Threatened species lists for different habitats (Vegetation communities)
This facility allows users to derive lists of species that are known or predicted to occur in a sub-region and which are known to utilise a particular vegetation formation or class. This will be of particular value for landholders, Councils, environmental consultants and land management agencies. It should be noted that these lists are indicative only as the presence of threatened species may be influenced by many other factors such as patch size, vegetation structure and land-use history.

You can access the species lists for vegetation types by clicking on the habitat links in the species section.

Through this site you can investigate the associations of species with different vegetation communities. The vegetation communities are shown at two levels, broad groups called vegetation formations and more defined communities, found within vegetation formations, called vegetation classes. These communities are based on descriptions provided in Keith, David Andrew (2004) Ocean Shores to Desert Dunes: the native vegetation of NSW and the ACT. DEC, Sydney.

For more information on the vegetation communities go to Native Vegetation of NSW.

Catchment management authority regions
This site uses the new Catchment Management Authority (CMAs) regions as the basis for its geographic searches. There are thirteen CMAs in NSW. These were established by the State Government to ensure that regional communities have a significant say in how natural resources are managed in their catchments.

The CMAs are locally driven organisations with a board that reports directly to the NSW Minister for Natural Resources. These statutory bodies, established under the Catchment Management Authorities Act 2003, coordinate natural resource management (NRM) in each catchment. They are responsible for involving regional communities in management of the NRM issues facing their region, and are the primary means for the delivery of funding from the NSW and Commonwealth Governments to help land managers improve and restore the natural resources of the State.

Each CMA board consists of a chairperson and up to six board members, who together provide a range of experience, skills and knowledge in areas such as primary production, cultural heritage, biodiversity conservation, business administration and governance. Each CMA also has a general manager and a small team of professional staff.

The CMAs work in partnership with the community, local government, State Government agencies, industry and individuals. For more information on CMAs visit the CMA website.

Catchment management authority sub-regions
The CMA sub-regions are broadly based on an overlay of CMA boundaries with the draft sub-IBRA (V6) boundaries created under the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) framework. When CMA and IBRA sub-regions were intersected some sub-regions were spilt into two or more parts. Those parts, which were small and not significantly different to the other bioregions within a CMA area, were dissolved to simplify the classification and reduce the number of landscape units.

IBRA regions (bioregions) are a landscape-based approach to classifying the Australian land surface using a range of environmental data. Across NSW there are 17 bioregions, each reflecting a set of major environmental influences which shape the occurrence of flora and fauna and their interaction with the physical environment.

The NSW Wildlife Atlas
The NSW Wildlife Atlas contains recorded sightings of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and endangered invertebrates in New South Wales. It does not contain records of fish.

Bionet
The NSW Government BioNet system allows for real-time access to a range of biodiversity databases. The system allows users to search for records of specific species or for all species across a specific area of NSW. The results of a search can then be viewed either in the form of a listing, or as an interactive map. Data used by the system is regularly updated by the participating NSW Government Agencies.

It is important to note that the threatened species site has access to records that are not yet in the public domain and thus there may be differences in the lists of threatened species generated by the two systems.

Each species profile has a link to its BioNet data in the left hand navigation column.

NSW Native Vegetation Map
The NSW native vegetation map shows the locations of the vegetation classes and formations provided in Keith, David Andrew (2004) Ocean Shores to Desert Dunes: the native vegetation of NSW and the ACT. All the maps can be displayed with reference layers showing a satellite image, major towns and roads, and the boundaries of Catchment Management Authorities, Local Government Areas, bioregions, state forests and national parks.

Each vegetation class and formation has a link to the NSW Native Vegetation Map.