Conservation Reserves Management Strategy 2003 - Parks Victoria

FIGURE 5NUMBER OF IMPORTANT, RARE AND LARGE EVCS IN CONSERVATION RESERVESNo Conservation Reserves1000900800700600500400300200100NCRNFRHCFR0Important EVC Rare EVC Large EVCLarge EVCs are defined as those with an area greater than 5% of the bioregion. A total of 246Conservation Reserves (just over 9% of reserves) have large EVCs. There are 78 NatureConservation Reserves (20% of NCRs) with large EVCs, 160 Natural Features Reserves (7% ofNFRs) with large EVCs and 8 Historic and Cultural Features Reserves (7% of HCFR) with large EVCsFauna diversityIn the absence of comprehensive fauna surveys for reserves, analysis of the data from DSE'sstatewide Atlas of Victoria Wildlife database is used to give an indication of the faunal diversity inreserves. The limitations of the dataset are outlined in Section 3.3.Most reserves have few or no records of fauna species (Figure 6). This probably indicates that themajority of reserves have yet to be surveyed and existing records are opportunistic sightings.Existing statewide records, as listed in the Atlas of Victorian Wildlife, indicate that 31% of the 2671Conservation Reserves have fauna records. Recorded fauna diversity within individual reservesrange from 280 species to just one species. Most reserves have few recorded fauna species (Figure6), which, in most cases, probably reflects that records are opportunistic sightings and that a reservehas not yet been surveyed, rather than a low fauna diversity.Individual reserves with the highest numbers of fauna species include River Murray Reserve (NFR),which has 280 fauna species, and Coranderrk NCR, which has 208 fauna species. Castlemaine–Chewton HA has the highest number of species records for Historical and Cultural Features Reserves(164 species).21