Have you ever heard the call of the Growling Grass Frog?

In the darkness, the call of the Growling Grass Frog can surprise you. At first, it’s a gentle, deep sound, which expands into the night as it grows.

But if you’ve heard this call recently, you’re remarkably lucky. The Growling Grass Frog, listed as vulnerable at both national and state levels, is holding on against the odds. Populations have declined since the 1970s, including those along the Merri Creek.

Our ecologist, Michael Longmore, is one of the lucky people. A few months ago, we sent Michael to the Moomba Park Wetlands where his teammates had reported hearing these frogs in 2019 (for the first time in years), to survey and confirm the presence of Growling Grass Frogs.

“When the call sounded out across the wetland, my heart started to race,” Michael told me. “I couldn’t believe I was hearing this frog – we’d thought it might be lost to the lower Merri.”

But Michael wants to hear that call again.
That’s why we’re asking for your support.

“I feel such a sense of responsibility for them now. We need the community to feel that responsibility too.” says Michael.

The presence of the Growling Grass Frog at these wetlands is good news, but we don’t have long to help them stay. With your support, we will gather much-needed knowledge and improve foraging habitat for this vulnerable frog.

“It’s fabulous to know there is potential for the Moomba Park Wetlands to act as a breeding ground,” Michael said. “But this newly returned frog is still at imminent risk of extinction. That’s why we need you behind us.”

Frog researcher Dr Brendan Casey grew up exploring the Merri Creek and delighting in the then-plentiful frogs he saw there.

“Growling Grass Frogs were literally everywhere along the Creek when I visited as a child,” says Brendan. “We would watch them basking in the creek and swimming through the water, trying to escape from us.”

Brendan’s love of those frogs led him to long-term frog monitoring along the Merri Creek as part of his PhD studies with RMIT. His research has taught us so much about the frog but we need to know so much more.

With your help, our team will gather long-term data, allowing trends across seasons to be recognised. This takes time and money.

“It’s fantastic that the frogs are breeding, but we can’t assume they’ll stay,” he told me. “The frogs are tolerating the contaminants that are an unavoidable part of stormwater treatment wetlands – but for how much longer?”

The time to act is now.

“I really don’t know how the frogs will cope when the hotter, dryer weather patterns of El Nino eventually arrive,” Michael says.

“We can’t afford to wait and see.”

Along with Chytrid fungus, a devastating fungus that has contributed to the loss of frog populations across the globe, continued urban development is perhaps the frog’s biggest killer along the Merri Creek.

“I remember some marshlands around Gowrie Station where I used to see all sorts of frogs as a kid,” says Dr Brendan Casey. “Somebody built a factory on it.”

I worry that the future could look bleak for this unique frog. But there are plenty of reasons to hope – and the biggest reason is you. In 2023 our donors raised over $20,000 for the Growling Grass Frog. This generosity allowed us to record the deep, slow growl of the Growling Grass Frog.

Now we’re asking for your support again – and this time we’re aiming much higher. We need to raise $90,000 by 30 June. Will you help us?

I look forward to your support.

Bernadette Thomas
Executive Officer, Merri Creek Management Committee