There is an exciting new display to be seen at the Cooma Visitor’s Centre! Following on from our successful partnership with the Saving our Species (SoS) team running the Discovering Dragons Project, we have continued to work together on all things earless dragon on the Monaro. Through continued collaboration with SoS, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, Local Land Services, Cooma Visitor’s Centre, the Grassland Earless Dragon Alliance, and some dedicated Landcare volunteers, we launched the Dragons and Gold display on September 7th, to mark Threatened Species Day on the Monaro. To help mark the day, we got involved in the Threatened Species Bake Off, sharing an incredible artistic creation from Eva Volk. It was great to chat and share tea and cake with the community on this day, celebrating our special Monaro grasslands. Pop past the Cooma visitor’s centre some time to see the display.
Grasslands
From classroom to conservation: Monaro school students leave their mark on endangered dragons 29 May 2026 – NSW Government Department of Environment and Heritage School students across Monaro are helping track one of NSW’s rarest reptiles through a school program that’s turning classrooms into conservation hubs. As part of the ‘Discovering Dragons’ program led by the NSW Government’s Saving our Species program, local students have been learning about the native Monaro Grassland Earless Dragon while contributing directly to monitoring work in the field. A key feature of the program has been inviting students to suggest names for newly recorded dragons detected during monitoring surveys. Students submitted 96 names, with 39 already adopted by field teams this season, including ‘DJ 67’, ‘Baby Godzilla’, ‘Bartholemu’, ‘Toby’, ‘Clover’ and ‘Larry’. The program builds on a 2024 pilot that introduced students to the species through a presentation and a creative activity involving painting a […]
This project aims to protect the agricultural asset and the environmental values of the Natural Temperate Grasslands of the MacLaughlin River landscape by reducing the critical threat of Serrated Tussock invasion. A targeted spray program will strengthen established containment zones and reduce core infestation of serrated tussock, a perennial grassy weed, that has the capacity to outcompete perennial native grasses. As the tussock causes a loss of species over the long term, it will dominate the landscape and reduce biodiversity in plant species. Additionally the Landcare group will benchmark the condition of the High Conservation Value Natural Temperate Grasslands (NTG) in the project area and study the impact of comparative grazing systems. The individual land managers will develop property plans that include specific management considerations for HCV grasslands. Through peer learning activities such as paddock walks the different methods of control will be evaluated. In this way the MacLaughlin River Landcare group […]