Animals vs development: The endangered species which have disrupted Victorian projects

From housing developments to infrastructure works, endangered animals and insects have up-ended grand plans for various projects across Victoria.

They might be small and in declining numbers, but various endangered animals and insects have managed to pack a punch on plans to wipe out their turf.

With the help of various supporter groups raising their plights, housing developments, transport works, infrastructure projects and even a company’s core activities have had to be compromised to protect native species in parts of Victoria.

Here’s some tales of projects up-ended for environmental reasons across the state to protect endangered species and their habitats.

Frog stomps on housing development

Last month Leader revealed Whittlesea Council was stepping in to protect a native frog species from being wiped out by a $2b housing and healthcare precinct.

Developers Riverlee bought Epping’s old Cooper St former quarry and landfill site in 2015 in partnership with Malaysian investors, to create a hospital and 2500 dwellings in its New Epping project.

Construction on the first stages has already begun, but the entire project will take 10-15 years and require future approvals across other parts of the site.

The council declared at its May 16 meeting it won’t sign off on plans unless they are changed to better protect the growling grass frog and its habitat.

The decision comes after concerns from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning and the Merri Creek Management Committee.

More than 45 amendments were approved, with some focusing on overshadowing and shading of the frog’s habitat, provision of appropriate buffers between the habitat and construction, and the quality of water entering the frogs’ wetlands.

The Eltham copper butterfly forced part of rail duplication project near Montmorency railway station to be abandoned. Picture: Nillumbik Council.

Butterfly bumps rail works

A rail duplication project worth more than $500m had to be altered in Melbourne’s north last year after an endangered butterfly species was spotted near Montmerency railway station.

The state government was planning to add more than 3km of tracks on the Hurstrbidge line from Greensborough as part of an election commitment in 2018.

Work had already begun when a local spotted the rare Eltham copper butterfly in bushland in February 2021, leading to investigations by the government and the Level Crossing Removal Project.

The butterfly, which had been at one stage considered extinct in the 1950s, is only found in parts of Eltham, Castlemaine and Bendigo.

Faced with a lengthy process to get approval from environmental experts, the government scraped 950m of planned tracks which would have been placed east of Montmorency station towards Eltham, and would have ploughed through the butterfly’s habitat.

Plans to build a giant fence to keep new animals out of Wilsons Promotory National Park were scrapped earlier this eyar. Picture: William Watt/Tourism Victoria

Wilson’s Prom Fence Flop

A huge fence up to 10km long to try and keep pests out of Wilsons Promontory was deemed too challenging by the state government, who scrapped the project in April.

The Weekly Times reported the fence was the centrepiece of the government’s $23m revitalisation plan for the national park, and was designed to stop new species coming in and threatening native wildlife.

It was set to be a logistic nightmare for designers and builders with Parks Victoria wanting the fence to cross sand dunes, extend into the ocean below a low tide mark, be buried deep enough to stop burrowing animals, and be fire and wind resistant.

The winning bidder would have also had to tick off plans to protect native vegetation and the heritage of the site, and work with engineers, designers and hydrologists before they could start building it, all coupled with a supply shortage in the building industry.

Parks Victoria advised three days after the March 25 deadline for the project that it had struggled to attract bidders and was “considering an alternative procurement strategy for these works”.

The leadbeater possum has causing havoc for a logging company’s operations in parts of Victoria. File picture.

Possum stops timber company logging

State-owned timber company VicForests copped a hefty bill in May 2020 after a judge ruled it had breached environmental laws by logging in parts of the Central Highlands, which contained habitat belonging to the endangered leadbeater possum.

A ‘friends’ group of the possum took the company to the Federal Court three years earlier with concerns about the company’s activities, and challenged the Regional Forest Agreement which gave the logging industry a special exemption from laws protecting threatened species.

The court found VicForests’ logging in 66 areas containing habitat critical to the greater glider and leadbeater’s possum went against federal law.

It also found that its activities in some of the area failed to comply with the Victorian Code of Practice for Timber Production, which was required under the RFA agreement.

VicForests was forced to pay the friends’ group’s legal costs and suspend its activities in the affected areas.

However, the company successfully appealed the decision in May 2021, leading to a fresh appeal from the friends group shortly after.

The High Court refused the request from the friends group in December.

VicForests was also taken to the Supreme Court by the Wildlife of the Central Highlands group in a separate case in March for a three-week trial.

They argued the company’s activities caused further damage to wildlife habitat following bushfires in 2019 and 2020.