Freshwater ecologist Rob Wager looks over the last known natural population of red-finned blue-eye in the world. Credit:Drew Creighton It may appear desolate yet the extreme landscape bristles with life - an iconic Australian collection of flora and fauna. The focus of a major conservation push is the small desert-dwelling fish, which can survive in artesian springs in two centimetres of water. Conservation is a hard fight and one not often won. When Fairfax Media reported on the wild populations of the red-finned blue-eye five years ago, three populations remained. Now there is one left.

But it is not all bad news. Scientists working to preserve the species are well on their way to developing 10 artificial populations in a decade-long plan to ensure that if the worst happens, the fish will survive. In a world first, the artesian springs have been replicated. Using a bore water pipe to connect an artificial dam to the Great Artesian Basin, scientists led by Bush Heritage's freshwater ecologist Rob Wager have recreated these micro ecosystems. This fish is amazing, it's in the middle of the desert ... there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

"It's not captive breeding, the idea is to recreate all the critical elements of the environment they require," Mr Wager said. A world-first replica artesian spring is planted with a "pioneer species" of plant to help create an ecosystem for the red-finned blue-eye. Credit:Drew Creighton The red-finned blue-eye is thought to be a remnant of a time when the interior of Queensland was a massive inland sea. Across the millennia, it is believed the evolutionary path taken by the fish enabled it to adapt to a shallow life, losing size in fins used for moving up and down. The fish grows up to three centimetres and as a young fish its eyes are blue with a vibrant yellow body. As the fish matures the fins blush with red.

"The genus is Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis; it means red-finned fish from springs, but the 'scat' part at the front, well, some unkind people have suggested it means 'fish that swims in shit'," Mr Wager said. "It was certainly like that in the '90s when the springs were impacted by stock and ferals. But we've come a long way since then." Freshwater ecologist Rob Wager searches for young red-finned blue-eye in one of his modified springs. Credit:Drew Creighton Now, with the incursion from stock and feral animals under control, every other survival hurdle pales in comparison to the threat posed by a predatory fish that grows no larger than six centimetres. The predator goes by the common names of gambusia or mosquito fish. It comes from the springs of North America and was introduced into Australia to manage mosquito populations.

In Darwinian terms, the gambusia is the fittest. It can live outside spring systems, unlike the red-finned blue-eye. It also breeds quicker than the blue-eye, gives birth to live young and the young are aggressive. "When we discovered blue-eyes, there were seven or eight springs that the fish lived in. Those springs form the basis for our counting of wild populations," Mr Wager said. "They got there by themselves, however they did it and we're counting down, we can't count any lower. "At that time they may have been wild populations, but they were already invaded by gambusia, so it was just a matter of time.

The red-finned blue-eye in a spring that has been destocked of invasive species and re-modified from and livestock drinking point. Credit:Drew Creighton "Essentially once gambusia move into a spring, the blue-eyes' days are numbered." In 2016 the last natural population faced its biggest threat when heavy rain collapsed a part of an earthen wall used to protect the spring from incursion by gambusia. Preservation of the reserve

Edgbaston Reserve is a picturesque former sheep station bought by the environment charity Bush Heritage for the purpose of protecting the springs and the red-finned blue-eye. On 8100 arid hectares, 15 plants and more than 20 species of wildlife have been discovered. The 2016-2017 summer was so oppressive, the scientific team said it was cause for celebration when the temperature dropped below 40 degrees at midnight. What used to be a shearing shed now functions as the base for scientists including Rob Wager, the man tasked with, among other conservation projects, reversing the imminent destruction of the red-finned blue-eye. "If Bush Heritage didn't buy this place, the blue-eye would be extinct, full stop," Mr Wager said.

Edgbaston Reserve in central Queensland home to the last population of red-finned blue-eye and many other species found nowhere else in the world. Credit:Drew Creighton Also on the reserve is David Coulton. A holdover from the previous tenants, he started his career on Edgbaston as a sheep shearer and is now tasked with upkeep on the reserve. When the station transitioned to a reserve he was in charge of pulling down much of the agricultural operation, including sheep and cattle yards. The reserve welcomes a range of different professions to the premises each year.

One of these people was Shannon Murphy, an artist who came to the reserve with a passion for communicating science through art. On any given day, she can be found collecting samples of stone and clay to make pigments for painting or specimens of plants and animals to draw with the help of a microscope. The converted shearing shed serves as a base of operations at Edgbaston Reserve. Credit:Drew Creighton University of Queensland PhD candidate Renee Rossini studies the "small things", invertebrates such as the myriad snails in the springs. Her focus at the reserve for her PhD was the ecology of macro-invertebrates in the Great Artesian Basin, "anything from one centimetre and down".

Volunteers are a key component of the preservation of the reserve as they are in much of Bush Heritage's more than nine million hectares of protected land. Tom Sjolund is one of those volunteers. An expert in video surveillance, Tom tinkers with old phone cameras, solar panels and lines of code to create necessary tools the reserve wouldn't otherwise have access to. His latest creation is a solar-powered, underwater motion detection camera. Watch and wait This spring holds the last known population of red-finned blue-eye. Credit:Drew Creighton

A flood breach in the outer wall of the spring where the last natural population of red-finned blue-eyes live could have been disastrous for the fish. The invasive gambusia fish are excellent at travelling via floodwaters and have been observed in drying pools outside the protective fencing, centimetres from populations of blue-eyes. It is possible flooding in 2016 may have carried gambusia into the spring. The spring, full of endemic species, much of them threatened, will be under close surveillance to make sure the worst has not happened. Tom Sjolund's underwater camera was developed for this purpose as well as for monitoring the general behaviour of life in the spring.

Rob Wager and Tom Sjolund set up a remotely operated camera to observe the last natural population of red-finned-blue-eye. Credit:Drew Creighton No two springs are the same, each a microcosm of life with many plants and invertebrates different to those in springs only kilometres away, so genetic diversity can be a worry. On top of that, the fencing around protected populations has also given rise to fears of inbreeding, as populations cannot move freely when the landscape floods. He has hopes that one day they may find the "golden egg" to remove the threat that is gambusia. "I think about it all the time, it can be all-encompassing. You wake up in the middle of the night with a mad idea to create a robot with laser eyes that can kill gambusia," Mr Wager said.

Freshwater ecologist Rob Wager looks over the last known natural population of red-finned blue-eye in the world. Credit:Drew Creighton Less wild but still a long shot is a greenish-brown blob found in abundance in the last natural population's springs. The blob is a newly described type of cyanobacteria, which contains cyanotoxins that may affect certain fish including the gambusia. "There are 100 reasons why it can't be possible. We rely on partners to be able to test these things. "This spring is right in the centre of gambusia territory and this cyanobacteria is only in abundance in this spring."

Rob's passion for fish started early, his mother's manual for keeping fish his earliest introduction. He first visited Edgbaston Reserve as an officer for the DPI in the 1990s to examine the fish and list it as endangered. The endangered red-finned blue-eye Credit:Adam Kerezsy The fish is now listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list as critically endangered and made the list of the top 100 most endangered species. As to why Rob chose the red-finned blue-eye as the focus of his work and why it was important, his answer was a little more ambiguous.

"This fish is amazing, it's in the middle of the desert, in an absolutely unique environment, there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world," Mr Wager said. "They are a part of the ecosystem and I would hate to think of a time when gambusia replace them. "It's the epitome of a tough Aussie battler and it's hanging on, it's worth giving it a go."

