If the Werribee River seems a bit fuller than normal, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you.
Melbourne Water has been releasing water into the Werribee River over the past week in a bid to help increase local platypus and frog populations and encourage native fish to migrate and spawn.
Melbourne Water senior environmental flow planner Bill Moulden said the river was still recovering from the long-term impacts of Victoria’s millennium drought, and this is one of the measures being used to bring the river back to optimum health.
Mr Moulden said a nationally threatened fish – the Australian grayling – has been recorded for the first time ever in the Werribee River when Melbourne Water started its release of environmental water during the past week.
“Environmental water gives nature a boost. It is used to replicate the conditions native fish, frogs and platypus require to reproduce, and it helps to flush out sediment and improve water quality.
“We strategically release environmental water during winter and spring,” he said.
“This enables platypus to move around the river and put on the weight they need to be healthy enough to reproduce during the summer breeding season.”
Mr Moulden said a fish ladder was also installed last year to help graylings and other fish to migrate and reproduce.
