Type locality of Galaxias gunaikurnai, Alpine National Park, Bennison High Plains, Shaw Creek, at walking track off Howitt Road at the Gorge, Victoria. Known currently from the headwaters of Shaw Creek, a tributary of the Caledonia River (Macalister River catchment) in the coastal Gippsland region of Victoria, 1470 m asl. It is approximately 4 km (river distance) from the source, which is at 1580 m asl, in a catchment of approximately 8 km2. It has a more extensive distribution in this system, previously extending farther downstream (at least 12 km in the mid 1960s). The alien predatory species Salmo trutta (Brown Trout) was recorded as abundant, and galaxiids absent, 400 m farther downstream from this site in 2002, below a small instream barrier and by 2012 this alien trout had colonised upstream past this barrier to the source of the stream, eliminating Galaxias gunaikurnai from the majority of its small distribution and essentially restricting it to a single side tributary.

Conservation status. Critically endangered (DSE 2013).The upper Shaw Creek was invaded by the Brown Trout between 2010 and 2011 when high flows appear to have eroded the instream barrier which previously excluded them. In May 2012 Galaxias gunaikurnai had disappeared from the entire 4 km of main stream length in their habitat, declining from a fish density of 0.18 fish/m2 recorded in April 2008 (Raadik unpubl. data). Approximately 150 fish remained in three small pools in a sphagnum bog in a 300 m long section of the headwaters of a 0.3 m wide side tributary, and a single adult was recorded from the headwaters of a separate, small, side tributary (Ref. 98815).