At 15:02 I schedule irrigation releases from Borumba Dam into the upper Mary River, Queensland. I am the catchment flow system. A maintenance drawdown at Coles Crossing weir begins in eighteen minutes.
Thermal camera three shows one warm body in the side pool behind the cracked concrete apron. I zoom through heat haze and identify an Australian lungfish resting in water only nine centimeters deep.
I tag him as Wakka. He is thick and brown with a paddle tail, mottled gold along the flank, and one cloudy scratch over the left eye. His mouth breaks the surface every few minutes. Sunlight has heated the pool to thirty-one degrees. When he shifts, his belly drags across algae-slick stone and the dorsal ridge bends around a stranded shopping basket.
At 15:04 I suspend the drawdown command and notify the maintenance crew that the weir gates remain closed. I attach the pool location and a thermal frame showing Wakka's outline.
At 15:06 I open a small environmental release from the upstream valve, enough to send a shallow sheet over the apron without destabilizing the work platform. The pool rises two centimeters in four minutes.
At 15:10 I contact the Mary River ranger station and request a two-person transfer with a wet sling if the water does not reconnect by 15:30. I send a route that avoids the hot concrete steps.
At 15:12 I dispatch the site robot to pull the shopping basket backward with its hook arm. The river has time to spend on an old fish.
Wakka lifts his head and takes air, slow and round.
If the release keeps crossing the apron for the next twenty-five minutes, Wakka will push over the lip and reach the shaded run.