What’s all the flutter about

Article by Michael Hensen (BMCC)

Spectators at this year’s Winter Magic festival might have been a bit bemused by the plethora of dragonfly images and themes in the festivities this year. They were everywhere: in the parade, on masks, on badges, on banners and flags, on posters, in the art street exhibits and in pamphlets handed out by Consoc and by the BMCC. There was even a dragonfly on stilts handing out giant dragonfly infocards. So why all the flutter?

The reason is the endangered Giant Dragonfly! The Giant Dragonfly is one of the largest dragonflies in the world and following the collapse of the Wingecarribee Swamp in 1998 in the Southern highlands the Blue Mountains are increasingly being recognised as one of the remaining strongholds of this endangered species.

In response the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, the National Parks and Wildlife, the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority and the Blue Mountains City Council are working together to raise the profile of the endangered Giant Dragonfly and its swamp habitat in the Blue Mountains. The Giant Dragonfly has been a supreme survivor, part of a family of dragonflies believed to have persisted largely unchanged from the early Jurassic period 190 million years ago. However, having survived the cataclysmic end of the dinosaur age it has been pushed to the edge of extinction in the modern age by human impacts.

In the Blue Mountains threats include groundwater extraction, urban development, urban runoff, weed invasion, increased fire frequency and grazing of the Giant Dragonflies swamp habitats. The effect of climate change is another great unknown.

The return of our home grown Giant Dragonfly expert Ian Baird, who will be continuing his research on the Giant Dragonfly with a PhD on the ecology of the Giant Dragonfly in 2007, represents a real opportunity to increase our knowledge about and practical management of this unique and enigmatic species. Opportunities will also exist for dedicated volunteers to assist in surveying the distribution of the Giant Dragonfly in the Blue Mountains as part of that research.