Qualla: Edgbaston Reserve

Edgbaston Reserve: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Across half a hectare of dry Queensland scrub, in a scatter of shallow pools fed from deep underground, lives a fish you will find nowhere else in the world. The red-finned blue-eye is barely three centimetres long, the males flushed with crimson fins, and the wild population of the entire species fits inside a few warm springs at a place called Edgbaston. It is not alone. These springs, north-east of Longreach, harbour more than two dozen plants and animals that exist on this property and almost nowhere beyond it, making Edgbaston one of the most extraordinary concentrations of life in Australia. Bush Heritage Australia bought the former cattle station in 2008 for exactly this reason: to keep a handful of puddles, and the small marvels inside them, from blinking out.

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Edgbaston Reserve: Water From an Ancient Sea

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The water that makes Edgbaston possible has been travelling for a very long time. It rises from the Great Artesian Basin, a vast aquifer beneath much of inland Australia, surfacing here as artesian springs in country that otherwise bakes. Where it pools, it has created islands of...

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Edgbaston Reserve: Museums of Evolution

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Because each spring is a small, isolated world, life inside it has evolved in its own direction for thousands of years, the way creatures on remote islands do. The result is a roll call of the unique: at least thirty-five species whose entire population, or its stronghold, lives ...

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Edgbaston Reserve: A Fish on the Brink

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The red-finned blue-eye was only discovered in 1990, and almost immediately its world began to shrink. The threat is a familiar one: Gambusia, the introduced mosquitofish, which invades the springs, harasses the tiny natives and out-competes them. In a few decades the number of s...

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Edgbaston Reserve: A Promise Made Permanent

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Edgbaston lies on the traditional country of Aboriginal people of the central Queensland uplands, and Bush Heritage works with Iningai and Bidjara Traditional Owners on its care. In 2024 that care was made lasting: Edgbaston became only the second Special Wildlife Reserve in Quee...

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