The Perunga Grasshopper, Perunga ochracea (Left) and the Canberra Raspy Cricket, Cooraboorama canberrae (Right)
The habitat of two beautiful insects found in our region’s remaining patches of intact natural grassland is in decline — so much so that the ACT Government has proposed their listing as threatened, at the level ‘Endangered’, under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Meet the Perunga Grasshopper, Perunga ochracea, and the Canberra Raspy Cricket, Cooraboorama canberrae.
These insects are vital to soil health in the small and dwindling remnants of natural temperate grassland on which they depend.
Natural Temperate Grassland in our region is already recognised as a critically endangered ecological community. The patches that remain are highly fragmented, often degraded and under continuing pressure from urban expansion, weed invasion, inappropriate fire regimes, feral predators and a changing climate.
Both species are highly restricted, ground-dwelling and confined to these threatened grassland remnants, recorded only in very low numbers. As is so often the case for invertebrates, the case for listing is compelling, yet these species can be easily overlooked in planning and development decisions precisely because they are small, cryptic and unfamiliar to the wider community. National listing is an important corrective: it will ensure their habitat requirements must be considered under the EPBC Act’s referral and assessment process alongside better-known threatened species sharing the same grassland habitat.
Insects like these play a disproportionately important role in maintaining healthy grassland soils, through processes including nutrient cycling, aeration and providing a food source for other native fauna. The decline of their habitat and populations is both a symptom of, and a further contributor to, the broader deterioration of our grassland ecosystems. Protecting them is inseparable from protecting the grasslands themselves.
We urge the Australian Government to list the Perunga Grasshopper and Canberra Raspy Cricket as threatened species, as proposed, in the threat category ‘Endangered’, and to ensure the accompanying Conservation Advice is adequately resourced and implemented so that listing translates into real protection on the ground.
We encourage you to email species.consultation@dcceew.gov.au by COB Monday 17 August to express your support for their listing as proposed. You could point to our submission — here — as one you support!