The aim is to preserve the Booroolong frog, a rare and endangered species found mostly in the Glen Innes area.

This week, the school is to start building a special pond for thee rare animal.

Under the guidance of Peta Perrin, an area of the school grounds is being converted into what she calls an “eco garden” about 13 metres by 42 metres.  

She said the building of the pond was a big event for the community. Aboriginal elders and other important people plus children from other schools had been invited to a special event to mark this next phase of the project.

Two helpers from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney have given advice and were expected to help further in the creation of the pond.

“The garden project will consist of native plants, vegetable garden beds with surrounding fruit trees, worm farm, recycling and compost and a rain water tank,” said Peta Perrin.

A Booroolong frog is to be introduced later.  Its cry has been described as “a soft, purring ‘craww craww craww’.”

There is concern among ecologists about the fate of frogs in the area.  One reckons that there are something like 17 endangered species of frog in the area.

Sophie Collins of the University of New England said in a meeting in Glen Innes earlier in the year that frogs were a good indicator of the wider biological health of a region so if they were under threat the likelihood was that other species were, too.​

She described her three-year project to document the presence of different types of frog in the Northern Tablelands.  She will then compare the results with those from a survey done forty years ago.

She mentioned research being carried out by the Australian Museum into the extremely rare Peppered Tree Frog last seen in Glen Innes in the 1970s.