When floodwaters tore through the Murray-Darling river system earlier this year, it sparked an exceptional rescue mission.
Months later, more than 1500 freshwater crays and hundreds of native fish found on the brink of death - some in wheat fields - are back home where they belong.
The effort to save them was a beautiful illustration of team work, with many people pitching in to pluck stranded critters from the deluge, the biggest the basin has seen in around half a century.
Fishing conservation charity OzFish worked alongside volunteers, farmers, landholders and agencies from NSW and Victoria to rescue and temporarily rehome the animals, with many taking extended holidays in private dams.
Braeden Lampard, from OzFish, said there was enormous satisfaction in being able to return them to their habitat after the floods hit.
"Floods pick up debris like leaves, sticks and native vegetation. That causes survival problems for aquatic species because as it breaks down, it sucks oxygen from the water," he said.
"That meant quite large areas of flood plains were inundated and flooding essentially caused stress to many aquatic species. Freshwater crayfish started exiting the waterways because the conditions were degrading quite quickly.
"The native fish showing signs of stress were losing colour, many of them were pale white and floating so they were on the edge of dying."
Teams worked through the mid and lower Murray from Mildura up to Barham for a month and a half, collecting distressed fish and putting them in an oxygen-rich tank.
Spotting the distressed fish in the water was trickier than collecting the crayfish which had climbed trees or wandered onto land.
"To give you an idea of the scale of the flooding we were catching distressed fish in the middle of wheat fields," Mr Lampard said.
OzFish is now working to ensure healthy habitat is restored to the hardest-hit areas.
