Endangered species jumps into focus at hearing

A SMALL creature played an unexpectedly large role in the hearing held by the Cape Otway Road Development Advisory Committee.

At 12.30pm on Friday last week, when the hearing was scheduled to wrap up, Advisory Committee chair Kathy Mitchell announced the committee had “decided not to formally close the hearing at this stage”.

This was because during the hearing it was revealed by locals that there had recently been sightings near the planned development site of growling grass frogs, which are labelled endangered by the federal Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment.

CORA’s survey of the area in 2017 stated there were no examples of the species in the area.

But photographs, video and audio logs provided by Modewarre locals late in the hearing proved growling grass frogs had been spotted close to the planned development site in November 2018, and in September last year.

CORA sent the evidence to Nature Advisory principal consultant Brett Lane, who managed to formulate a response in time for the concluding submissions.

Mr Lane, who conducted the 2017 survey of the area, stated in his report that he did not believe the CORA development would provide a major impediment to the species.

“Based on the preferences of the GGF (growling grass frog), it is considered highly unlikely that any of the waterbodies within the CORA site represents a current, regular breeding site.”

After Mr Lane’s submission was read out by CORA’s representatives, the hearing’s Advisory Committee adjourned to discuss the implications of the findings.

Ms Mitchell said while they were thankful for Mr Lane’s quick response to the evidence, they wanted to be thorough.

“We do feel this needs to be reconciled further and so we will direct some planning action in this regard.”

She also stated it may be necessary to conduct a further survey on the site. This would be a time-consuming process that could significantly delay the project.

In their concluding comments, the committee subsequently flagged the possibility of reconvening in the coming days to further assess how they should respond to the growling grass frog sightings.